Altice is now the fourth largest U.S. cable operator as it completed its $17.7 billion purchase of Cablevision, making it a powerhouse provider of residential broadband and business services.
When combined with its earlier purchase of Suddenlink, the new Altice USA will serve 4.6 million customers across 20 states. Altice USA now represents about 40 percent of the Altice Group's total business.
Altice has plenty to offer on the broadband and business services fronts. Altice plans to have up to 1 Gbps service available by the end of 2016 in a total of more than 250 Suddenlink-served communities. Meanwhile, Cablevision's Lightpath division recently announced that it now reaches 8,000 business locations in its New York footprint, enabling it to better respond to business' desire for fiber-based Ethernet and cloud services.
FierceCable breaks down the significance of the Altice deal here.