Optimum is an American telecommunications brand owned and operated by Altice USA.[1] It is the fourth-largest cable provider in the United States and a Fortune 500 company. Optimum offers Internet, television, mobile and home phone services in 21 states.
History
Optimum began as a "30-channel[2] system built in the 1970s"[3] using "copper cable" technology. Modernizations and expansions of their services included "a fiber optic network" and more channels, with an expanded set of offerings. As of 2020, the name is still used.[4]
The original Optimumpre-digital technology was limited in the number of channels it could carry.[3] The trademark (styled as OPTIMUM) was "first in use in commerce in August 1994".[5]
Optimum logo used from 2004 until 2012
Optimum as a Cablevision offering
Cablevision Optimum equipment return facility in Brooklyn, New York
Following Optimum being acquired by Cablevision,[6] the brand Optimum TV[7][better source needed] was used to market a more expensive offering with more channels.[3] By 2004 the name Optimum Voice was used to offer "a new phone service" based on cable-modem technology.[8] Like competing offerings from
AT&T, "it stops working altogether if the power goes out".
The Optimum name was also used to offer Cable-based Internet access;[9] Optimum also pioneered in optionally bundling this with TV access, using "streaming" technology. In what was termed "digital service" Interactive Optimum was not first, but was early in steering the introduction of video-on-demand, alternate camera views for sporting events, and VCR-like rewind and replay.[6]Optimum Select was a related offering, "in which viewers could click on their remote controls to receive more information".[10] Similarly, regarding Optimum's branding and HBO Now, writes the New York Times, "Cablevision’s Internet subscribers can order the service on the company’s website, Optimum.net .., or by calling."[11]
Although references such as "Cablevision's Optimum"[12] do not include the Altice name, both names[13] reflect major market share: one study showed Optimum Voice as the eight-largest phone service provider in the U.S.[14] The name's value was used for about two years when an acquisition held June 2010 through February 2013 was named Optimum West.[15][16]
Interactive Optimum (iO)
Cablevision remote with a large "iO" button in the middle
In late 2001, Interactive Optimum (iO Digital Cable Service)[6] combined "telephone, Internet, entertainment" with "60 channels of digital music and 20 channels of topics like antique car collecting, vegetarian cooking or wedding planning'. The New York Times described other cable companies in 2002 as having offered "merely a way of improving television reception". By 2004, there were 15 competitors, but the entire subscribing customer base for what others called "Interactive TV" was described as "still rare".[17]Advertising Age reported that "several high-profile ventures that had their plug pulled for troublesome economic or technological reasons".
Even so, by "playing catch-up"[18]iO and the rest of the company's offerings increased customer count from 689,000 (2004)[17] to over 3 million (2016).[19]
Altice USA
Altice bought the Optimum brand and Cablevision for $17.7 billion in June 2016. Cablevision was combined with Suddenlink Communications to create Altice USA, the fourth largest operator in the United States.[20]
On March 1, 2021, Altice USA announced that it would acquire Morris Broadband in North Carolina for $310 million which was later closed on April 6, 2021. Altice later announced that Morris Broadband would be rebranded into the Optimum name, making it the first time since 2011 when under its predecessor, Cablevision, in which Optimum had systems outside of the New York area.[21][22]
In April 2022, Altice USA announced that SuddenLink was to be rebranded into Optimum. Because of this, Optimum will automatically expand its footprint to eleven additional states, in addition to expanding in North Carolina with its previous acquisition with Morris Broadband.[23] The rebranding was later completed by August 1, 2022.[1][24]
Narrowcasting
With the introduction of more than Optimum's original 30 channels, narrowcasting was added to the service's offerings,[6] since it was now economical to provide "programs of much significance to small audiences."
Conflicts
A New Jersey company that named itself "Optimum Networks Inc." was sued by then-owner Cablevision Systems Corporation (CSC) for violation of the OPTIMUM trademark in 2010.[5]
^Federal Communications Commission (FCC) report Federal Register – 1977 – Delegated legislation (Report). 1977. p. 54945. The cable television system has a 30-channel capacity. Subscribers ...
^Stewart Ain (December 10, 2000). "Cable Customers to See Price Increase". The New York Times. Cablevision's premium service, called Optimum Gold, will ...
