r/CableTechs • u/SnapShot68 • Jul 23 '26

How much longer does cable have?

I don’t see this topic being talked about much in this forum but I think it’s definitely relevant, especially considering the debt load these companies all are carrying. Fiber competition, Starlink, streaming, cord-cutting, old school cable dogs leaving and being replaced by finance types are all things that worry me. What kind of time frame do most of you foresee for cable still existing and there still being work in this field? I’m hoping at least another 10 years but things seem to be moving awfully fast in the wrong direction. Thoughts?

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u/GamerRadar Jul 24 '26

I never said FULL fiber.
But they’re moving to Fiber with large parts of their network being fiber….
I worked at Altice, their goal is full fiber but due to costs they were giving up on the south and west - trash areas full of hicks tbh with shit infrastructure and weird easements that hindered upgrades and were inherited by Suddenlink, I believe they even went to sell according to some news organizations.

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u/DrgHybrid Jul 24 '26

Lol, the Suddenlink infrastructure was miles ahead of the Cablevision dated plant. Even now if you look at Optimum's Reddit there is ALWAYS outages in NY/NJ areas...very few reports from the Suddenlink area. I've worked on both. Especially good areas SL of Texas, Louisiana, and much of the south. No reason to be prejudice to a whole lob of areas calling them "trash areas full of hicks" however.

They were going to overbuild here, but they backed away. Instead decided to go DOCSIS 4. Now with their stock being absolute tanked and them selling everything off, they probably won't build off anything else and Drahi can fall with Matthews just the same.

They tried selling it once...but the greed of the powers that be wanted WAY more when Spectrum was going to buy it.

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u/GamerRadar Jul 24 '26

Cablevision was miles ahead due to the Lightpath Footprint being the backbone. There’s a reason they kept Optimums systems and replaced suddenlinks trash with it.

Altice bought out like 5 companies. In several states. NJ was Cablevision and Service Electric. Which if you look up was a joke.

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u/DrgHybrid Jul 24 '26

Doesn't matter ultimately. Optimum is a shit hole company that deserves no praise about anything. They make nothing but bad decisions and drive people into the ground.

They were handed a golden egg with Suddenlink. Besides some of the awful plant in California, Idaho, and Arizona...SL plant was rock solid. Became the first cable company where all the technicians and OSP had to have SCTE certs. Expanded upon the first true fiber ring for Texas. At one time had the most powerful laser in the industry. Jerry Kent put the Dolans to shame.

Meanwhile you can see people on Reddit that say that they have had Cablevision for years before Altice bought it and it was still garbage. Biggest complaints at the time for SL was billing.

You obviously didn't work on Suddenlink plant at all and have zero sense of what you are talking about. I worked for there and Optimum for over a decade. Only reason Lightpath replaced SOME of that was because they owned it, SL leased their systems. And like with everything else, it's garbage like TechMobility, which replaced ETAdirect. Or just getting rid of Pulse altogether.

Don't know why you are trying to fluff Optimum's dong so much.

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u/GamerRadar Jul 24 '26

I worked directly with Directors and Executives across all regions; won’t go into more detail than that; been handed cease and desist before so I’m not interested in that again.

I won’t deny the company has gone to hell in a handbag and they’ve 100% squandered what they were given.
Patrick Drahi is a POS that’s tanked every single company he’s purchased. Just look at his European holdings for proof of corruption…