WSJ: Altice’s pending mobile service could be half the price of wireless rivals'

Altice is gearing up to launch a mobile wireless service that’ll cost half of what major wireless carriers charge customers, according to a report from Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

Altice is planning to test the mobile service with its own employees in the next few weeks and will launch the service later this summer. WSJ reports Altice will charge between $20 and $30 per month for the service but added that a spokesperson for the company said the pricing hadn’t yet been set.

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The network will run on Sprint’s wireless network and will be augmented by Altice’s network of public Wi-Fi hotspots and customers’ home Wi-Fi networks. The company has deployed more than 19,000 small cells in less than one year through its partnership with Sprint, while Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei has said in the past that he expects the mobile service to be profitable “right out of the box.”

Altice is the latest cable company to venture into the mobile service market as cable TV subscriptions contract. Comcast and Charter have both launched their own mobile services in recent years in hopes to retaining more customers.

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At the same time, wireless carriers like Verizon and T-Mobile are in the midst of launching home broadband services using 5G fixed wireless, which may pose a competitive threat against cable operators’ booming broadband business in the coming years.