Given Its Weak Financial Position and Slow Progress, We Move Our Altice USA Moat Rating to None

Altice USA has struggled to retain customers recently—more than cable peers Comcast and Charter—as it battles stiff competition from Verizon in the New York market and faces the incursion of new fiber network competition and fixed-wireless players into the broadband business. The firm has also taken a different approach to the business in recent years than other cable operators, with lackluster results. A new management team has slowly been improving the firm's performance, but Altice USA's very large debt load calls for faster progress than we've seen recently.