Altice USA COO Hakim Boubazine sent out an employee memo to company tech workers Monday, attempting to summarize the MSO’s plan to spin off the company’s network engineering force into a new company called Altice Technical Services U.S. (ATS).
“Singularly focused on end-to-end technical service delivery, the company will work in partnership with Altice USA to deliver an industry-leading experience within the connectivity environment,” Boubazine said.”Specifically, ATS will focus on network design, engineering and construction, inside and outside plant maintenance and field service. This will allow Altice USA to focus on innovation and investment in order to deliver market-leading products and services.”
Boubazine added: “Altice USA employees from field service, construction & fiber, design, outside plant maintenance, inside plant, and our field-based employees servicing our commercial accounts, will have the opportunity to become founding members of ATS, a company built around them—their experiences, their skills and their growth. As a result, they will have the chance to learn new technologies and build more advanced skills that bring even greater long-term career opportunities. And they will work alongside familiar leaders from both Optimum and Suddenlink operations, as well as Altice, who have already signed on.”
The Communications Workers of America has openly speculated the spinoff might be an attempt by Altice to work around conditions agreed upon with New York regulators during the approval process for the company’s $17.7 billion takeover of Cablevision earlier this year.
Altice has responded that the technical services strategy is similar to what it has already executed in places like Portugal and France. Altice also said the program is voluntary, although it’s hard to know what career options a tech might have if their entire department switches over and they don’t.
Two weeks ago, Altice USA announced an ambitious plan to bypass DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades and instead achieve multi-gigabit speeds by building out fiber-to-the-home.
“ATS will be instrumental to achieving our vision,” Boubazine added.