Altice USA has announced that it now has app support for Apple TV 4K.

And in addition to letting subscribers to its Altice One video platform use the service on their Apple OTT device, the cable operator is also providing financing for the gadget ($180 MSRP). 

For Apple, such an arrangement with a U.S. cable operator isn’t new. The technology giant formed a similar partnership with Charter Communications in 2018 that embedded the operator’s Spectrum TV service into the Apple TV 4K, and also had Charter peddling the OTT device in its retail stores. 

As for Altice One subscribers, they’ll be able to access their live TV, on demand programming and cloud DVR recordings on their Apple TV 4K device, and they’ll be able to use Siri voice commands to do it. 

The New York-based cable company’s customers will also be able to restart select programming that’s already in progress.

Additionally, Altice USA will let customers pay $10 a month in installments, plus tax, for the Apple TV 4K hardware. 

The integration benefits users who prefer using off-the-shelf OTT devices over proprietary leased set-tops. It also is of particular interest to those who don’t want to lease a secondary Altice One set-top for other rooms in their home.

"With Altice One on Apple TV 4K, we are providing another innovative yet simple way for customers to view all of the high-quality content they love," said Hakim Boubazine, Altice USA chief operating officer and president of telecommunications, in a statement. "Powered by Altice's powerful broadband and WiFi network and leveraging the advanced features of Apple TV 4K, the Altice One app for Apple TV extends our services even further into the home and brings customers more choice and flexibility in how and where they watch their favorite content.”

Comcast’s X1 has received much attention as the prototype for modern, advanced video delivery systems that incorporate cloud DVR, voice control and WiFi management and, in the process, reduce churn.

But more quietly, since it first debuted in January 2018, Altice USA’s Altice One platform has carved out a similar success story, downsizing the cable operator’s video churn for the last six quarters while simultaneously spurring broadband growth.

During Altice USA’s second-quarter earnings call, CEO Dexter Goei called the launch of Altice One, which incorporates set-top, cable modem and WiFi router functions, to be “a very, very strong success.”

Indeed, video attrition during the period was 21,000 subscribers, down from 24,000 in the second quarter of 2018, despite cord-cutting levels reaching a record high for the broader pay TV industry. Broadband net additions were 13,000 vs. 10,000 in the second quarter of 2018.

Average revenue per user is also substantially higher in homes with Altice One, the company said, while not citing specific data.

The metrics are impressive, considering only about 400,000 Altice USA customers have the Altice One system. That’s 13% of the company’s base, up from 4% infiltration in the second quarter of last year.

Three Le Boxes in One

Blending hardware from Sagemcom, silicon from Broadcom, content security from NAGRA and transcoding services from Cisco Systems, Altice One combines advanced TV search and discovery, as well as cloud DVR and voice control, along with integration of key digital services, notably Netflix and YouTube, with more OTT services on the way. There are WiFi optimization and control features. New offshoots have been added, such as an Alexa-powered smart speaker.

RELATED STORY: Altice's Model Behavior

When European telecom conglomerate Altice suddenly swooped in and acquired U.S. cable companies Suddenlink Communications and Cablevision Systems in 2015, there hadn’t been a lot of recent investment in terms of advanced user interfaces and various other modern pay TV features across the two companies, Altice USA co-president and chief operating officer Hakim Boubazine said.

Indeed, Cablevision lost around 5% of its video customers from Q2 2014 to the second quarter of 2015, a time when cord-cutting was a thing, but not nearly as robust as it is today. The attrition wasn’t much better at Suddenlink. The technology and user experience were being overwhelmed by the many new ways to consume video in the marketplace.

“The [Altice One] platform has helped us transform the user experience,” Boubazine said, noting that the mere modern look of the CPE, which contains no ’90s-era “bulky remote control,” has been a key selling point that allowing Altice USA to tap into younger consumer segments.

Currently, Altice One — now on version 3.0 of its operating system — is available across Altice’s Optimum footprint, as well as the portion of the Suddenlink footprint that offers 1 Gigabit-per-second broadband services.

Despite its success, Altice One isn’t hoisting heavy promotion of the platform. It is offered to new customers, those who are moving their service and, notably, those who are seeking to ditch their pay TV service because they want something better. “We use it a lot as a retention play,” Boubazine noted.

Boubazine didn’t disclose how much Altice USA is paying per truck roll to install Altice One. The platform requires technicians to wire up only one device instead of a video set-top, modem and WiFi router.

“The installation process is actually super simple and that allows our technicians to spend more time explaining the features and functions,” he said.

Despite that simplicity, installing new CPE into homes isn’t cheap, and Altice USA has a lot of other places to focus its cash flow — most notably on building out its fiber network and wireless infrastructure.

Expect deployment of Altice One to keep crawling along rather than getting up to sprint anytime soon.

White-Label Opportunities?

Boubazine was also asked if Altice USA has considered a white label licensing strategy for Altice One, similar to how Comcast licenses X1. Notably, Cox Communications repackages X1 as Contour. Canada’s Rogers Communications, Shaw Communications and Vidéotron do largely the same thing.

“We have looked into it, but cable operators use so many different [back-end systems] and those have to be aligned [with Altice One],” Boubazine said. “We decided it was better to focus on our own company.”

Boubazine also said that Altice One is decidedly a child of the Cablevision and Suddenlink mergers.

During its gestation, Altice One was called “Le Box,” and was reported as a technological offshoot of Altice CPE systems already deployed in Europe. But Altice One resembles Le Box only in form factor. The “guts” of the system, Boubazine said, were almost entirely developed by Altice engineers stateside.

“As we acquired Cablevision and Suddenlink, we realized that we inherited some of the finest engineers in the industry,” he said, noting the core contribution of these technologists to the platform.

As it surveyed its U.S. cable assets way back in 2015, four years before its launch of Altice Mobile, Altice was focused, Boubazine said, on the concept of cable wireline and wireless convergence. For Altice USA, that means seamlessly blending WiFi and cellular access for customers. Altice is now in the process of building out that cellular piece. But the deployment of Altice One has been a key step in improving the WiFi aspect.

“And Altice One was the most urgent piece,” he explained, noting the platform’s ability to extend WiFi range in homes up to 40%.

Finally, Boubazine noted that Altice One is able to work across multiple encryption access systems, saving the need for the company to build three different pieces of CPE for three different types of backends.

“It’s the finest piece of engineering I think we have,” Boubazine said.

Altice USA has announced that Amazon Prime Video will soon natively integrated into the cable operator's advanced video platform, Altice One.

According to the cable company, the integration will roll out in the coming months. 

With the integration, the 400,000 Altice One users will be able to access Amazon Prime SVOD content through their native user interface, and use voice control features, alongside previously integrated apps including Netflix and YouTube.

Related: Altice One Burns the Churn

“From Altice One to Altice Amplify, we are simplifying the entertainment and connectivity experience for our customers to bring them the content and features that matter most to them, all in one place,” said Hakim Boubazine, Altice USA co-president and chief operating officer.

Added Andrew Bennett, head of worldwide business development for Amazon Prime Video. “Prime Video is committed to making streaming on demand and live entertainment as convenient as possible for our customers. We are excited to work with Altice to give Prime members another convenient way to access their favorite Amazon Originals, purchase new-release shows and movies, or customize their entertainment lineup with Prime Video Channels.”

Comcast’s X1 has received much attention as the prototype for modern, advanced video delivery systems that incorporate cloud DVR, voice control and WiFi management and, in the process, reduce churn.

But more quietly, since it first debuted in January 2018, Altice USA’s Altice One platform has carved out a similar success story, downsizing the cable operator’s video churn for the last six quarters while simultaneously spurring broadband growth.

During Altice USA’s second-quarter earnings call, CEO Dexter Goei called the launch of Altice One, which incorporates set-top, cable modem and WiFi router functions, to be “a very, very strong success.”

Indeed, video attrition during the period was 21,000 subscribers, down from 24,000 in the second quarter of 2018, despite cord-cutting levels reaching a record high for the broader pay TV industry. Broadband net additions were 13,000 vs. 10,000 in the second quarter of 2018.

Average revenue per user is also substantially higher in homes with Altice One, the company said, while not citing specific data.

The metrics are impressive, considering only about 400,000 Altice USA customers have the Altice One system. That’s 13% of the company’s base, up from 4% infiltration in the second quarter of last year.

Three Le Boxes in One

Blending hardware from Sagemcom, silicon from Broadcom, content security from NAGRA and transcoding services from Cisco Systems, Altice One combines advanced TV search and discovery, as well as cloud DVR and voice control, along with integration of key digital services, notably Netflix and YouTube, with more OTT services on the way. There are WiFi optimization and control features. New offshoots have been added, such as an Alexa-powered smart speaker.

RELATED STORY: Altice's Model Behavior

When European telecom conglomerate Altice suddenly swooped in and acquired U.S. cable companies Suddenlink Communications and Cablevision Systems in 2015, there hadn’t been a lot of recent investment in terms of advanced user interfaces and various other modern pay TV features across the two companies, Altice USA co-president and chief operating officer Hakim Boubazine said.

Indeed, Cablevision lost around 5% of its video customers from Q2 2014 to the second quarter of 2015, a time when cord-cutting was a thing, but not nearly as robust as it is today. The attrition wasn’t much better at Suddenlink. The technology and user experience were being overwhelmed by the many new ways to consume video in the marketplace.

“The [Altice One] platform has helped us transform the user experience,” Boubazine said, noting that the mere modern look of the CPE, which contains no ’90s-era “bulky remote control,” has been a key selling point that allowing Altice USA to tap into younger consumer segments.

Currently, Altice One — now on version 3.0 of its operating system — is available across Altice’s Optimum footprint, as well as the portion of the Suddenlink footprint that offers 1 Gigabit-per-second broadband services.

Despite its success, Altice One isn’t hoisting heavy promotion of the platform. It is offered to new customers, those who are moving their service and, notably, those who are seeking to ditch their pay TV service because they want something better. “We use it a lot as a retention play,” Boubazine noted.

Boubazine didn’t disclose how much Altice USA is paying per truck roll to install Altice One. The platform requires technicians to wire up only one device instead of a video set-top, modem and WiFi router.

“The installation process is actually super simple and that allows our technicians to spend more time explaining the features and functions,” he said.

Despite that simplicity, installing new CPE into homes isn’t cheap, and Altice USA has a lot of other places to focus its cash flow — most notably on building out its fiber network and wireless infrastructure.

Expect deployment of Altice One to keep crawling along rather than getting up to sprint anytime soon.

White-Label Opportunities?

Boubazine was also asked if Altice USA has considered a white label licensing strategy for Altice One, similar to how Comcast licenses X1. Notably, Cox Communications repackages X1 as Contour. Canada’s Rogers Communications, Shaw Communications and Vidéotron do largely the same thing.

“We have looked into it, but cable operators use so many different [back-end systems] and those have to be aligned [with Altice One],” Boubazine said. “We decided it was better to focus on our own company.”

Boubazine also said that Altice One is decidedly a child of the Cablevision and Suddenlink mergers.

During its gestation, Altice One was called “Le Box,” and was reported as a technological offshoot of Altice CPE systems already deployed in Europe. But Altice One resembles Le Box only in form factor. The “guts” of the system, Boubazine said, were almost entirely developed by Altice engineers stateside.

“As we acquired Cablevision and Suddenlink, we realized that we inherited some of the finest engineers in the industry,” he said, noting the core contribution of these technologists to the platform.

As it surveyed its U.S. cable assets way back in 2015, four years before its launch of Altice Mobile, Altice was focused, Boubazine said, on the concept of cable wireline and wireless convergence. For Altice USA, that means seamlessly blending WiFi and cellular access for customers. Altice is now in the process of building out that cellular piece. But the deployment of Altice One has been a key step in improving the WiFi aspect.

“And Altice One was the most urgent piece,” he explained, noting the platform’s ability to extend WiFi range in homes up to 40%.

Finally, Boubazine noted that Altice One is able to work across multiple encryption access systems, saving the need for the company to build three different pieces of CPE for three different types of backends.

“It’s the finest piece of engineering I think we have,” Boubazine said.

Altice USA has unveiled a new smart home speaker to compliment its Altice One CPE platform.

Altice Amplify combines Devialet-built audio and Amazon Alexa voice technology into a singular device that can play music, and respond to commands to control both the entertainment center and any connected home technology.

The device includes Speaker Active Matching (SAM) sound processing and Adaptive Volume Control (AVL). The latter automatically adjusts audio levels to match the scene in a video, eliminating the need to manually adjust the volume when he dialog stops and the explosions start.

Altice is selling the device for $399 to its subscribers and $499 to everyone else. Altice USA subscribers can also lease the device for $10 a month along with the Altice One platform.

“Altice Amplify is the next step on our mission to provide consumers with powerful new technologies and experiences that brings their homes to life,” said Hakim Boubazine, co-president and chief operating officer of Altice USA. “Whether it’s streaming music, watching a favorite show or movie, or controlling the smart home, Altice Amplify gives consumers ultimate control over their entertainment and smart home needs.” 

Altice USA reduced video subscriber losses at its Optimum and Suddenlink systems by one-third and broadband additions increased by more than 40% in the first quarter, spurred, it's top executive says, by the cable operator’s recently launched Altice One platform.

Altice USA lost about 10,000 video customers in the period, a sharp reduction from the 30,000 it lost in the same period in 2018. At the same time, broadband customer growth, relatively stable over the past several quarters, rose by 42% in the period to 37,000, compared to a gain of 26,000 customers in the prior year.

Related: Altice USA Launches Altice One 3.0 

Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei said the company’s Q1 performance could be attributed to the launch of its new gateway hub -- Altice One -- launched across the footprint in the period.

"Altice USA has made a great start to 2019 as we continue to realize the benefits of our ongoing investments to improve the customer experience and deliver state-of-the-art connectivity services, advanced business solutions and high-quality content,” Goei said in a press release. “Altice One is delivering the best ever video customer performance for Altice USA. With our focus on network investment we continue to see improved broadband customer growth and significant growth in the demand for higher speeds and data usage.”

Overall revenue rose 2.9% to $2.4 billion and adjusted EBITDA increased 5.3% to $1.03 billion in the quarter.

Altice said it is on track to launch a mobile service -- part of an MVNO with Sprint -- in the summer. 

Altice USA has launched the latest version of its Altice One Operating System -- Altice One OS 3.0 -- an updated version of its entertainment and connectivity platform that includes a new sports hub, a refreshed home screen for faster navigation, and an optional voice guidance feature embedded throughout its user interface.

Altice One is available to Altice USA's Optimum and Suddenlink customers, and combines 4K video, streaming apps, ultra high-speed broadband, home WiFi, and digital voice service into a compact home entertainment hub with an advanced voice-activated remote control.

Since launching, Altice One’s OS has been updated several times with new content and features, and now offers access to more than a dozen streaming apps like Netflix, YouTube, and Cheddar as well as new capabilities, like the ability to watch DVR content on the go through the Altice One mobile app.

"With each update to Altice One, we are simplifying the way our users find, discover, and enjoy the content that matters most to them," said Altice USA Co-President and COO Hakim Boubazine in a press release. "Altice One OS 3.0 brings new features for our sports fans and new ways to navigate to popular content faster, providing a more seamless and accessible experience for all.”

With the Sports Hub, customers get an overview of games taking place in the next 48 hours and the ability to select their favorite teams for a customized view. Highlights and other YouTube content from professional leagues and teams will auto-populate for an even more in-depth experience. The Altice One OS 3.0 update also brings more sports content in 4K – in addition to a selection of soccer and basketball games, select Major League Baseball games scheduled on FS1 will be broadcast in 4K Ultra HD on Altice One’s dedicated 4K channel, currently available only to Optimum customers on channel 200.

Altice also has updated its home screen, enabling faster navigation with dedicated shortcuts like: Restart (currently for Optimum customers only), which shows in-progress programming from more than 50 networks that can be restarted; Sports on Now, showing live sports content; and Quick Tips, tutorials to help Altice One users get the most out of their experience

Altice One’s enhanced Voice Guidance feature serves those with visual impairment by providing a text-to-speech functionality that allows users to navigate the system’s user interface through audio instead of on-screen text.

For a full list of Altice One features, including those newly available as part of the OS 3.0 update, click here for Optimum and here for Suddenlink.

Reporting a loss of 15,000 video customers in the fourth quarter, an improvement over the 25,000 lost a year prior, Altice USA is hopeful that it’s new Altice One CPE platform is helping to reduce churn in the same way as Comcast’s advanced video platform, X1, has.

But even with the platform supposedly yielding improved Net Promotor Scores among its customers, Altice doesn’t feel just yet like it has the goods to aggressively tie it to reduced churn in the same way Comcast has in recent years with X1.

Altice One is distributed in only about 300,000 homes, accounting for only around 10% of Altice USA’s video user base. Altice USA believes the platform needs a little more time to prove itself.

Related: Broadband Helps Drive Q4 Growth at Altice USA

“We haven't talked about it broadly because we still think it's too early to tell to be very proactive in our commentary,” said Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call Thursday.

“We did want to start highlighting that we're seeing better NPS scores on the Altice One platform than we are seeing relative to legacy set-top boxes. You've also seen the improvement in video [revenue generating units] quarter-over-quarter throughout 2018. We don't want to attribute that yet to Altice One. So it's too early to tell whether that is a churn impact or whether there are things that are happening in other video technologies out there that are helping our video trends,” Goei added.

The platform’s ability to integrate popular OTT platforms like Netflix—and soon, Alice said, a vMVPD—is adding to Altice One’s allure, he noted.

“I don't think we are seeing a degradation, let's call it, of our linear viewership because there is access to OTT apps in an easier format,” Goei said. “I think it's really a question of a much, much better user experience and being able to access all the direct-to-consumer options that are out there in a very easy way, in a very aggregated way you're not switching between your HDMI 1, 2 and 3 on a regular basis on your television set.”

Meanwhile, with Altice USA actually promoting 1-gig fiber-to-the-home services in Long Island and surrounding parts of its Optimum footprint, Goei dismissed any notion during Thursday’s call that the operator will be looking at the cable industry’s emerging “10G” DOCSIS-enabled technologies, such as Full Duplex.

“Obviously, we're part of CableLabs. So as part of whole CableLabs experience, we're part of that. But we are more focused on our fiber-to-the-home GPON technology than we are on coax 3.1 10G technology,” Goei said. 

Alice USA has announced the first operating system upgrade to its year-old Altice One platform.

Among its added functionality, Altice One 2.0 will enable users to watch cloud DVR content on the go using the Altice One mobile app. It will integrate YouTube Kids alongside other streaming services—notably YouTube and Netflix—already embedded into the platform.

Related: Altice USA Unveils ‘Altice One’

The upgrade will expand the availability of 4K content, including Premier League soccer, which will now be available on channel 200.

Remote control voice search will be enabled for the YouTube app. And the show restart feature will be expanded to 20 additional channels, including A&E, History Channel, Lifetime, Viceland, Fox News, Fox Sports 1, FX and National Geographic. Show restart lets users bounce back to the beginning of any enabled program. 

Altice USA said during its third quarter earnings call earlier this month that the initial deployment of Altice One is complete, including expansion across the Suddenlink footprint. Altice said it’s now available across 80% of its overall footprint.

The company said about 200,000 of its customers are using the Altice One platform currently.

“Altice One has transformed the way our customers connect to the content they love by simplifying their entertainment experience and providing expansive WiFi coverage to power their homes,” said Hakim Boubazine, co-president and chief operating officer, Altice USA, in a statement. “OS 2.0 gives Altice One families new features to enjoy such as enhanced mobility with on-the-go Cloud DVR, more streaming apps, enhanced voice search, and more 4K content, and is just the latest update as we continue to evolve the Altice One experience for our customers.”

Altice USA improved its video losses in the first quarter – shedding about 30,000 subscribers in the period versus 35,000 in the prior year – but chairman and CEO Dexter Goei told reporters that they shouldn’t expect that to turn into positive growth anytime soon.

“I’m not going to go out on a limb,” and predict positive video subscriber growth," Goei said on a conference call with reporters to discuss Q1 results, adding that he doesn’t see an acceleration of video losses either.

Other cable operators have seen video subscriber losses increase in the first quarter due to several factors, including added pressure from over-the-top service providers. Comcast shed 96,000 video customers in Q1, compared to gain of 42,000 the year before. And Charter Communications touched off a meltdown in cable stocks in late April when it revealed it lost 112,000 video customers, well in excess of expectations.

Related: Half Full

Goei said the Q1 subscriber losses were due very specific issues – its weeks-long carriage dispute with premium channel Starz and several severe snowstorms in its service territory. Although the Starz dispute was resolved in February,  competitor Fios TV capitalized on the impasse with an aggressive marketing campaign to try to lure customers away.

Altice also has started rolling out its much-touted communications hub – Altice One – in the quarter in its Optimum areas and already has installed the product in about 100,000 homes. The cable company initiated a soft launch of the product, which offers seamless navigation across traditional video, OTT apps and whole-home WiFi and other services, in Suddenlink markets in the second quarter and will expand across the footprint in Q3. 

Altice USA also is making progress on its wireless offering, a mobile virtual network operator agreement with Sprint that could see daylight by the first quarter of 2019. Goei said he did not anticipate problems with the arrangement in light of Sprint pending acquisition by T-Mobile.

For the quarter, revenue was essentially flat – up 1.2% to $2.33 billion from $2.3 billion in the prior year – and cash flow increased 4% to $981 million. Goei said he expected Q1 to be the low point of growth for the company, predicting that revenue will rise between 2.5% and 3% for the full year.

Altice USA said it was going to take a different approach to the cable business after it purchased Suddenlink Communications in 2015 and Cablevision Systems in 2016 for a combined $27 billion. And while its results since then have been pretty much in line with the rest of the industry, it has excelled in growing operating profits, which in the fourth quarter were more than twice some of its peers at 12.2%.

Altice USA finished the year with a loss of about 25,000 video customers, slightly higher than the 21,000 it lost in the prior year. High-speed data growth at 26,000 was in line with the prior year gain of 36,000. Revenue grew 2.6% to $2.4 billion.

But the company really outshone its peers with 12.2% cash flow growth, nearly two times the 6.2% much larger Charter Communications reported in its Q4 results and nearly three times the 4.2% at Comcast’s cable division in the period.

When Altice purchased Cablevision Systems in 2016 it said it had a plan to drastically cut costs and drive cash flow growth. Although it was met with some skepticism at the time, so far Altice as delivered.

In a conference call with reporters, Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei said the Q4 numbers shouldn’t come as a surprise.

“We’ve been very open that we’ve brought a differentiated approach to running these businesses,” Goei said. “Now we’re about two years into it and have been able to realize a significant amount of opex, capex and direct cost synergies here, to drive our business and drive better free cash flow margins. I think it’s a combination of coming from an environment which is very highly regulated in Europe and somewhat more competitive with much lower ARPU levels, which means we have to work a lot harder for less in our European properties. We’ve instilled that mentality into our Altice USA employee base. Secondly, I think we have taken the historic capex budgets and been able to save quite a bit of money with key suppliers as well as eliminate what we would view as non-core projects and reinvest that into things like the Altice One box which is a game changer for us, like fiber to the home and like a full MVNO.”

Altice USA unveiled its communications hub, Altice One, in November, offering seamless navigation across traditional video and over-the-top services as well as whole-home WiFi connectivity, a voice remote and other features. Its fiber to the home project, which will enable a more connected home and higher data speeds, is progressing with construction to connect several hundred thousand homes in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut underway. The fiber network build is expected to accelerate in 2018 with the first commercialization of FTTH services later this year. The company struck a full Mobile Virtual Network Operator agreement with Sprint to offer a wireless service. Goei said the company expects to launch the service in 2019.

Altice USA unleashed an ad featuring international soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo to highlight Altice One, the operator’s recently launched all-services hub.

The 30-second spot was run regionally in Altice USA’s Optimum footprint, which is made up of  cable systems that came way of Altice’s acquisition of Cablevision Systems in 2016.

Last year, Cox Communications also bought time regionally in San Diego during Super Bowl LI to promote one of its new offerings, Panoramic WiFi. Comcast took a similar approach in 2016, when it ran a spot showcasing X1 during Super Bowl 50 on CBS in dozens of the MSO’s local markets.

The operator launched Altice One in November, offering a device that supports Altice USA’s video, broadband and voice service, along with built-in WiFi, voice navigation, and the integration of select OTT apps. Last week, Altice USA completed an integration of Netflix on Altice One across its Optimum footprint.

RELATED: Altice USA Integrates Netflix Across Optimum Footprint on New Platform

In the Super Bowl spot, marking first campaign from Altice USA and agency partner Y&R, follows Ronaldo as the “discovers” American-style football to the tune I've Never Seen Anything Like It. The Real Madrid star is outfitted with full pads and helmet, running and route on the gridiron and punctuated by his soccer skills as he heads the pigskin through the uprights.

Watch it below:

Altice USA also posted an additional up spot featuring Ronaldo -- Optimum: Futebol Vs. Football – that serves as an origin story on how the soccer star discovered this other form of football and found himself on the gridiron:

Altice USA has unveiled its new communications hub, Altice One, offering customers seamless navigation across traditional video and over-the-top services as well as whole-home WiFi connectivity, a voice remote and other features.

Altice USA’s parent company Altice N.V., had previously successfully introduced a similar offering in Europe under the name “La Box” several years ago. In the U.S., the technology will be largely housed in the cloud, offering fully integrated access to live TV, video on demand, apps such as YouTube and Pandora, cloud DVR recordings and WiFi connectivity – plus advanced search via a new voice-activated remote control, with more to come.

“We live in a world where content and technology are converging at a fast pace, and Altice One provides the experience, entertainment and connectivity that consumers are looking for today,” Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei said in a statement. “Altice One is just the beginning of a new, better and simple experience for Altice’s Optimum and Suddenlink customers as we look to become the connected home provider of choice now and into the future. Less than two years after acquiring Cablevision and Suddenlink, we’re thrilled to bring this new service to market for our customers and reinforce our ongoing commitment to continuous innovation in the U.S.”

Related: Altice USA Hawks Nest Smart Home Products

Altice One has been in customer trials and will be available in select areas of Long Island beginning next week, rolling out across the rest of Altice USA’s footprint in the coming months.

News of the new platform comes as Altice USA announced third-quarter earnings. 

RELATED: Altice USA Q3 Video Losses Improve

Aside from the voice activated remote – a staple of Comcast’s X1 operating system – Altice One features include a My Picks section for customers’ favorite shows and recently recorded content; Restart, which allows customers to go back to the beginning of a show; a cloud DVR and 4K capabilities. In addition, Altice One allows for more seamless app integration, including access to content from YouTube and Pandora, with deals in place to integrate additional OTT services in the near future.

When it reached its carriage deal with Disney earlier last month, Altice agreed to eventually carry Disney’s direct to consumer offerings – an ESPN-branded service slated for early 2018 and a Disney DTC service to be launched in 2019 – so those services likely will be included.

Connectivity features include: Altice One Minis, smaller digital boxes servicing additional TVs in the home and offering the same user interface and experience. Each mini also can act as a WiFi extender.

In a conference call with reporters Thursday, Goei said the first installation of the service is scheduled for Monday (Nov. 6) in Long Island and that future rollouts will concentrate on double play and triple play customers. About 60% of Altice USA’s customers take two or three services, he added.