Goodbye Service Electric: Altice USA closes acquisition of utility
SPARTA — After providing cable services to Sussex County for over 70 years, Service Electric Cable TV of New Jersey is no more.
Altice USA, a cable, phone and internet provider based in Long Island City, Queens, closed on its $150 million purchase of the Sparta-based cable company on Tuesday, according to Altice spokeswoman Janet Meahan. The deal was announced in February.
Roughly 30,000 Sussex County customers of Service Electric’s Broadband Cable subsidiary have now transitioned to Altice’s Optimum brand.
Meahan said that in the coming days, customers will be contacted individually. They’re also encouraged to visit a new landing page for more information: optimum.com/serviceelectric .
The website says customers will have access to a variety of new channels with the addition of the News12 networks. The networks include News 12 +, a continuous news channel, and i24NEWS, a continuous English-speaking international news channel. Depending on the plan, several music-streaming and sports offerings and a financial news channel called Cheddar have also been added.
It was not immediately known if the cost of the plans will increase from those offered by Service Electric; Meahan did not respond to a request for those numbers and the costs of the packaged plans for Sussex County were not listed on the landing page.
A search of several locations in Sussex County for cable deals on the Optimum website returned a result that Optimum “does not provide service in your area.”
Customers will also have access to the cell-phone plans available through Altice Mobile.
Customers are asked to continue using their online Service Electric accounts to pay their bills during the transition.
For questions, call 1-800-992-0132 or visit the office in person at 320 Sparta Ave. in Sparta. Normal business hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
In February, Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei said the deal to buy Service Electric Cable TV would be profitable since there are no “overbuilders” to compete with in Sparta and the area had an underdeveloped broadband network. An overbuilder is a company that enters an area that builds on an already existing telecommunications network by other companies.
“With coveted assets that boast attractive broadband growth opportunities, the transaction provides Altice a much-needed boost to cement its regional presence,” a Nasdaq analyst said of the deal.
Service Electric got its start in 1948 in Pennsylvania under John Watson Sr. Prior to his death in 1993, the utility was split into three companies that operate independently from one another, with Watson’s children each getting a business to operate.
Bob Williams, general counsel for Service Electric, told the New Jersey Herald in February it was “just the right time” to sell the broadband subsidiary, which also covers parts of Warren County.
The sale did not include Service Electric’s Pennsylvania systems.
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