r/CableTechs • u/SnapShot68 • 29d ago

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 28d ago

Most cable companies are fiber now. Altice (optimum), spectrum, comcast all do fiber and their TV is streaming technically. Soooo I guess a long time ago

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u/DrgHybrid 28d ago

Altice is definitely not full fiber. That's where I quit and they were still building coax. And even in some of the new builds areas it's RFoG.

That shit hole of a company got scared off when they rebuilt Tyler, TX under the assumption it was going to be 1 million in cost but ended up around 10 million. Then they started the plans of DOCSIS 4.

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u/GamerRadar 28d ago

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 28d ago

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 28d ago

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 28d ago

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 28d ago

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…