Mediacom CEO Rocco Commiso laid out an ambitious agenda as the U.S. cable operator celebrated its 100th consecutive quarter of revenue growth, outlining plans for a network upgrade and the potential debut of a mobile offering.
In a letter to investors, Commisso said the operator is “gearing up to launch 10G services across our footprint.” Though he didn’t provide additional specifics, an operator representative told Fierce it is deploying a DOCSIS 4.0-compliant architecture, and already has a “substantial number” of customers on distributed access architecture infrastructure today. However, its initial 10G rollout will utilize extended features of DOCSIS 3.1 due to “the unavailability of DOCSIS 4.0 chipsets,” the representative said.
The representative added Mediacom is starting a 10G project in the Des Moines, Iowa, metropolitan area this year and plans are in the works to add additional markets.
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Mediacom has been laying the groundwork for 10G for some time. Back in September 2020, it unveiled a 10G Smart Home demo alongside CommScope. Given the operator has offered 1 Gbps speeds on its network since 2017, the move is likely aimed at enabling Mediacom to better compete with fiber rivals offering multi-gig services. The operator’s network already competes with Google Fiber in Huntsville, Alabama and will overlap in West Des Moines when Google Fiber launches there later this year.
Commisso’s letter also noted Mediacom is “actively evaluating whether a compelling business case can be made for offering a Mediacom-branded mobile phone service.” The representative specified that it is considering entering into an MVNO relationship, explaining “we think that there is consumer value in a simplified bundle of internet, video, phone and mobile.”
Q4 metrics
Mediacom is the fifth largest cable operator in the U.S. Since it went private in 2011, the company does not host earnings calls, however it does post quarterly performance metrics.
Its latest update showed Mediacom revenue grew 2.2% in Q4 2021 to $561.2 million, which the operator noted was its 100th consecutive quarter of year-on-year revenue growth. High-speed data (HSD) revenue rose 11% to $277.3 million, with Video roughly flat at $167.8 million and phone revenue down nearly 7% to $27.3 million. Business services revenue was up 4.1% to $77.4 million but advertising revenue fell 60.6% to $11.6 million.
Consolidated full year revenue of $2.2 billion was up 4.3%, with HSD revenue increasing 14.3% to $1.1 billion to account for nearly half of overall sales. The company did not disclose its net income, but reported adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) of $266.9 million for Q4 and $1 billion for the full year.
The operator lost 3,000 high-speed data customers in the quarter, swinging substantially from a gain of 13,000 in Q4 2020. However, it ended Q4 with 1.46 million HSD customers, a figure which was up 1.7% year on year from 1.44 million.
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Mediacom is in the midst of a network expansion which aims to reach 500,000 new locations over the coming years with fiber and fixed wireless access. It initiated work in 20 markets last year, and as of Q3 had completed projects in five of those.
The Mediacom representative said its expansion work continues to be a moving target, noting it finished “several” projects in Alabama and is nearing completion of additional builds in Iowa and Tennessee. It has around another 15 new communities in its construction pipeline and is waiting to see if it will be awarded grants it applied for in several different states for a number of additional projects.
“With all the federal and state money being poured into broadband expansion, we expect to be very active for the foreseeable future,” the representative said.