Following hints dropped in February, Altice USA is amping up its mobile marketing with device promos, including a new buy-one/get-one free offer on a Samsung Galaxy A14 5G phone.

Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor

April 3, 2023

3 Min Read
Altice USA gets more aggressive with mobile

Altice USA is starting to market its Optimum Mobile service more aggressively in the form of device promos that have been introduced in recent weeks.

As spotted by the analysts at TD Cowen, Optimum Mobile has been promoting a new buy-one/get-one (BOGO) free offer on select Samsung devices since around March 24.

Under that deal, which applies to "well-qualified" customers, Optimum Mobile customers can buy one Samsung Galaxy A14 5G phone and get another one free. According to the fine print, the free, second Samsung device is applied across 36 monthly bill credits with the activation of two Optimum Mobile lines and the purchase or finance of the first device. Customers who pursue that deal must also sign up for autopay.

Figure 1: (Source: Altice USA promotion page for its Optimum Mobile service) (Source: Altice USA promotion page for its Optimum Mobile service)

Among other deals currently being promoted for Optimum Mobile, customers can also get $200 off an Apple iPhone 13 mini. Altice USA is also offering $100 discounts on the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G and Galaxy S22 5G.

Optimum Mobile, underpinned by an MVNO deal with T-Mobile, is selling a baseline Unlimited service (20 gigabytes of premium data) for $30 per month per line when customers take two or more lines, or Unlimited Max (50GB of premium data) for $40 per month per line – up to five lines per account. Optimum Mobile also sells a 1GB plan for $15 per month per line and a 3GB plan for $25 per month per line.

Altice USA is also giving a price break on home broadband service when customers bundle in Optimum Mobile. When they do bundle in mobile, customers can get $10 off home broadband for the 100 Mbit/s-300 Mbit/s and 500 Mbit/s speed tiers, or $15 off if they take the company's 1-Gig or 2-Gig home broadband products.

Mobile taking on 'a more meaningful role'

Those device promos and packages are coming together a few weeks after new CEO Dennis Mathew promised that "mobile will take on a more meaningful role" at Altice USA as the company explores new pricing and packaging strategies.

Altice USA, which launched mobile service in the fall of 2019 with original MVNO partner Sprint, added 4,000 mobile lines in Q4 2022, bringing its grand total to 240,000.

Mobile "is largely an untapped opportunity for us, and so this is going to be a focus as we move forward," Mathew said. "We are actively working on a new pricing packaging that brings broadband and mobile together with even more value. And I think that's going to be critical to helping us win in this space."

Altice USA is also investing more heavily into retail to showcase the Optimum Mobile product. At last check, the company had 137 retail stores open and expected to add more retail outlets as the year goes on.

Altice USA's cable industry peers are already getting more aggressive with broadband/mobile convergence packages. Charter Communications is hoping to boost mobile line counts with its new "Spectrum One" bundle. Comcast recently introduced a similar type of bundle.

Related posts:

— Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading

About the Author(s)

Jeff Baumgartner

Senior Editor, Light Reading

Jeff Baumgartner is a Senior Editor for Light Reading and is responsible for the day-to-day news coverage and analysis of the cable and video sectors. Follow him on X and LinkedIn.

Baumgartner also served as Site Editor for Light Reading Cable from 2007-2013. In between his two stints at Light Reading, he led tech coverage for Multichannel News and was a regular contributor to Broadcasting + Cable. Baumgartner was named to the 2018 class of the Cable TV Pioneers.

Subscribe and receive the latest news from the industry.
Join 62,000+ members. Yes it's completely free.

You May Also Like