Altice USA has told the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority that it plans to institute an across-the-board rate hike starting in June.
In an email to FierceCable this morning, the Long Island-based cable operator said that the “price adjustments” will result in customer bills that are, on average, 3.2% higher than they are right now.
“We are investing in our networks, services, and the overall customer experience, from launching our Altice One entertainment platform to the deployment of our fiber network, which we are actively building throughout our footprint,” Altice said in a statement. “Our rates, like those of other pay TV providers, continue to be impacted by skyrocketing programming costs, of which we pass just a fraction of those rising costs along to customers.”
The letter to Connecticut officials was first reported on by Hearst Connecticut Media.
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It’s the second major price hike announcement for Altice since October, when it instituted increases shortly after coming to terms on program licensing with The Walt Disney Company.
With the price hikes, customers will now pay a dollar more each for broadcast TV ($4.99) and sports ($3.99) surcharges. For new customers, set-top leasing charges will increase by $1 to $11 a month, and all customers will pay an additional 50 cents for CableCards.
New customers will also play an additional $30 more for installation, with rates set at $69 for a standard service install and $129 for premium service. If customers fail to pay their bill and service is shut off, they will see the shutoff charge double to $10.
These are just a few of the price hikes amid an across-the-board set of increases.
Altice USA posted a profit of $1.5 billion in 2017, finishing the year with an average revenue per customer of $155.82 in its Optimum footprint.