Charter Communications will spend nearly $2 billion less on capital improvements to its Spectrum cable network and services this year, despite raising TV and broadband prices—and despite Ajit Pai's claims that repealing net neutrality rules would boost capital investment.
"We currently expect capital expenditures, excluding capital expenditures related to mobile, to be approximately $7 billion in 2019, versus $8.9 billion in 2018," Charter wrote in an earnings announcement today. "Our expectation for lower capital expenditures in 2019 versus 2018 is primarily driven by our expectation for lower customer premise equipment spend with the completion of our all-digital conversion [and] lower scalable infrastructure spend with the completion of the rollout of DOCSIS 3.1 technology across our footprint." Charter's costs are also going down because it has largely finished integrating Time Warner Cable and Bright House, after buying the cable companies in 2016. (...)
Charter raised prices in November
Despite the expected decrease in costs, Charter raised prices throughout its 41-state cable territory in November. The price hikes affect both broadband and cable TV service and could amount to $91 extra per year for individual customers who buy both.
Charter said its cable revenue per residential customer was $111.78 a month in the fourth quarter, up 0.9 percent from the previous year. Charter said that "promotional rate step-ups and modest rate adjustments"—price increases, in other words—helped offset the fact that many customers purchase only Internet service and thus aren't paying for TV.
Charter told Ars in October that its new price hike "reflects the dramatically faster speeds and investments we've made in reliability and quality."
But the speed increases in 2018 were achieved without a major increase in capital spending. Charter's total capital spending for 2018 was $9.1 billion, including $242 million in costs for its new mobile service, up from $8.7 billion in 2017. Charter is a reseller of Verizon network capacity, so it isn't actually building its own mobile network. But it spent money on back-office systems and retail store upgrades in order to launch the mobile service in June 2018.
by Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica | Read more:
Image: Charter
[ed. Monopoly capitalism. See also: Net neutrality court case preview: Did FCC mess up by redefining broadband? (Mess up?).]
"We currently expect capital expenditures, excluding capital expenditures related to mobile, to be approximately $7 billion in 2019, versus $8.9 billion in 2018," Charter wrote in an earnings announcement today. "Our expectation for lower capital expenditures in 2019 versus 2018 is primarily driven by our expectation for lower customer premise equipment spend with the completion of our all-digital conversion [and] lower scalable infrastructure spend with the completion of the rollout of DOCSIS 3.1 technology across our footprint." Charter's costs are also going down because it has largely finished integrating Time Warner Cable and Bright House, after buying the cable companies in 2016. (...)Charter raised prices in November
Despite the expected decrease in costs, Charter raised prices throughout its 41-state cable territory in November. The price hikes affect both broadband and cable TV service and could amount to $91 extra per year for individual customers who buy both.
Charter said its cable revenue per residential customer was $111.78 a month in the fourth quarter, up 0.9 percent from the previous year. Charter said that "promotional rate step-ups and modest rate adjustments"—price increases, in other words—helped offset the fact that many customers purchase only Internet service and thus aren't paying for TV.
Charter told Ars in October that its new price hike "reflects the dramatically faster speeds and investments we've made in reliability and quality."
But the speed increases in 2018 were achieved without a major increase in capital spending. Charter's total capital spending for 2018 was $9.1 billion, including $242 million in costs for its new mobile service, up from $8.7 billion in 2017. Charter is a reseller of Verizon network capacity, so it isn't actually building its own mobile network. But it spent money on back-office systems and retail store upgrades in order to launch the mobile service in June 2018.
by Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica | Read more:
Image: Charter
[ed. Monopoly capitalism. See also: Net neutrality court case preview: Did FCC mess up by redefining broadband? (Mess up?).]
