Cablevision will maintain unlimited Optimum Online broadband service to all of its customers and will not introduce usage-based pricing, according to Gregg Seibert, chief financial officer.
“I don’t see usage-based billing as something that we have plans for at this time,” Seibert told investors attending this week’s Bank of America/Merrill Lynch Global Telecom and Media Conference in London. “I think it would take a broader industry shift for that type of metered pricing to come in. At this point we don’t see that in the future.”
Cablevision has a long history opposing usage pricing or caps. In 2009, Jim Blackley, Cablevision’s senior vice president of corporate engineering and technology, said usage caps were not in the cable company’s plans:
“We don’t want customers to think about byte caps so that’s not on our horizon,” he said. “We literally don’t want consumers to think about how they’re consuming high-speed services. It’s a pretty powerful drug and we want people to use more and more of it.”
Cablevision’s announcement may also be in response to its biggest competitor. Verizon earlier this year repeated it had no plans for usage-based pricing for FiOS customers either.
Cablevision continues to attract new broadband customers, primarily from customers canceling DSL service but not moving to FiOS.