Altice USA is jockeying to secure its fair share of broadband subsidy money as billions in federal funding flows to the states, with CEO Dexter Goei revealing it has already applied for $150 million in support and plans to chase significantly more.
Speaking during a UBS investor conference, Goei said over the next six to 12 months it will likely apply for an additional $500 million in funding. Across all the territories contiguous to its coverage areas “we suspect there’s probably a billion of subsidy money to go after if we were to apply for all of the availability,” he added. “The low end of that is probably $500 million.”
The CEO said it’s “very difficult” to predict how successful it will be in winning the support it has applied for. However, he noted it is pursuing funding in areas near to its head ends. “So, we tend to have a capital advantage obviously in terms of our ability to deploy more efficiently and to co-invest more aggressively alongside the subsidy money in the states,” he explained.
Goei said the $150 million it applied for was for about 55,00 to 60,000 homes. If it wins a significant amount of funding “that could help to change some of the let’s call it edge out numbers in terms of the acceleration of edge outs, in terms of our ability to deliver more homes.” The operator previously laid out plans to edge out to as many as 200,000 homes per year in 2022 and beyond.
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Altice’s keen interest in securing subsidies follows the recent passage of a U.S. infrastructure bill which allocated $42.45 million to the states to fuel broadband deployments. States are also received a significant amount of moeny that can be used for broadband deployments as part of the American Rescue Plan Act signed in March 2021.
Goei said the operator is aiming to use some subsidy money to help it finish upgrading its Suddenlink footprint. “We’ll probably be completed with our full upgrade of the Suddenlink territories by 2023, as opposed to 2022, as we look to take advantage of subsidy money here. Because a lot of it is some rebuild, which is driving costs of $1000 to $2000 a home,” he said.