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Wave Broadband, an independent cable operator providing service in the Pacific Northwest, has announced it now offers gigabit broadband service across its three state footprint of Washington, Oregon, and northern California.
“We are thrilled to launch gigabit speeds throughout our coverage areas in Washington, Oregon, and California,” said Harold Zeitz, Wave president and chief operating officer. “During the past several years, Wave has focused on growing our fiber network specifically to accommodate gigabit and faster connections for our customers. The demand for fast, reliable internet connections at an affordable price is growing, and our Gig Speed Internet is the ideal solution for both residential and business customers.”
The biggest enemy of Altice in Europe is robust competition, which has allowed dissatisfied customers to switch providers in droves. SFR-Numericable, despite promises of fiber-fast speeds, has endured complaints about slow and uneven speeds and persistent service outages. Drahi’s original business plan was to upgrade broadband speeds and performance to win over France’s remaining DSL customers. That worked for a time, according to the French newspaper Libération, 
Drahi also made headlines last summer by announcing SFR-Numericable was completely scrapping its coaxial cable networks in France (as well as in Cablevision territory in the United States) to move entirely to optical fiber technology, even in the most rural service areas. But the fiber upgrades are not being financed with cash on hand at Altice. Libération reports the $1.78 billion Altice will need to spend on fiber upgrades for France alone will be financed by more bank loans. Drahi hopes to eventually offer bonds to investors to internally finance fiber upgrades.
Pai
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is preparing to announce a complete dismantling of Net Neutrality protections enacted during the Obama Administration, despite millions of comments from Americans demanding the agency retain rules protecting an open internet.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal (use link embedded in tweet below to avoid paywall), Pai seems poised to introduce a complete rollback of the rules requiring internet service providers to treat all web traffic equally, which appears to have been his original plan before opening the matter to public comment.
The changes, likely to be adopted by the 3-2 Republican majority at the FCC, will allow ISPs to sell paid or bundled packages of websites and content and offer it to consumers at higher speeds, lower prices, or without counting usage against data caps. “Paid prioritization” was specifically forbidden under rules introduced by Obama-era FCC chairman Thomas Wheeler, who expressed concern ISPs already wielded too much power over the internet experience.
FCC is expected to dismantle ‘open internet’ plan adopted by the Obama administration https://t.co/SxWKvvxcIy
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) November 20, 2017
WSJ:
If the rollback survives likely legal challenges, it has the potential to reorder the online business environment. It could give internet providers such as AT&T Inc., Comcast Corp., Charter Communications Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. more flexibility to use bundles of services and creative pricing to make their favored content more attractive to consumers.
These companies generally profess support for basic principles of “Net Neutrality,” such as not blocking content or throttling its delivery. But with the Obama-era bright-line rules widely expected to be eliminated, many experts predict the industry will experiment with new services. The big internet providers either declined to comment or didn’t respond over the weekend.
The change would affect not only how the internet is regulated, but who regulates it. Under the new plan, legal experts say, oversight responsibility would shift to include the Federal Trade Commission as well as the FCC.
The FTC has long been the principal regulator of most internet businesses, a regime effectively ended with the 2015 rules. The shift is significant because unlike the FCC, the FTC generally doesn’t adopt overarching rules, instead developing case-by-case determinations about what business behavior is fair or unfair.
Drahi was banking on his ability to manage Altice’s debt and boost revenue by milking U.S. cable customers. Unlike in France, where competition and regulation have kept cable television and broadband prices much lower than in North America, Drahi saw enormous potential from the U.S. telecom market, where Americans routinely pay double or even triple the price many Europeans pay for television and internet access. Drahi sold investors on the prospects of slashing costs, initiating employee cutbacks, and raising prices for acquired U.S. cable companies. Suddenlink customers are particularly captive to cable broadband because the only alternative in many Suddenlink markets is slow speed DSL. Cablevision faces fierce competition from Verizon FiOS, but Verizon has sought to ease revenue-eating promotions that the company has offered in prior years. Both U.S. cable operators have raised prices since Altice acquired them.
Comcast is raising broadband speeds across its expansive Central Division, which covers customers in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee.