Cable One’s Q1 broadband subs dip, but new products, processes show growth promise
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Cable One focuses on market-specific strategies and personalized products for future broadband revenue growth
Cable One saw its broadband base dwindle slightly in the first quarter as it was hit with a series of one-time issues, but the cable MSO maintains it has the elements in place to get to a sustainable growth path.
During the fourth quarter, the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) ended while the company realigned its management team, including eliminating the Chief Legal and Administrative Officer position. This move aims to improve operational focus on customer growth, market expansion, and service delivery.
Speaking to investors during Cable One's first-quarter earnings call, Julia Laulis, CEO, said the events were isolated within the quarter.
“The one-term events, the unique headwinds that we referred to at year-end, were primarily around the sunset of ACP,” she said. “We also had a change in key team members that we referenced.”
Later, in the first quarter, Cable One’s customer churn rose due to various issues, including billing migration activities, turning off unprofitable fixed wireless towers, customers from an earlier acquisition, and weather-related events.
However, Laulis emphasized that its churn would not have been as high with “unusual and generally nonrecurring events.”
“Our churn is incredibly low,” she said. “It's historically low if we remove those items.”
ARPU challenges and opportunities
In addition to its restructuring efforts, Cable One saw a dip in ARPU during the quarter due to promotional offers and credits issued to customers impacted by third-party fiber cuts.
Cable One’s residential data ARPU was $78.84, down $2.49 from $81.33 a year ago.
While ARPU did decline during the quarter, Laulis said Cable One’s ongoing sales of higher-speed broadband service tiers and new product offerings could turn the tide.
“ARPU remains stable and the trends that we see support growth in the coming quarters, including higher sell-in of our gig and multi-gig products, momentum from new product offerings, and the number of discounts scheduled to roll off,” Laulis said. “Taken together, these factors position us well to improve ARPU through the balance of the year.”
One product with potential is its SecurePlus offering, which has seen a 15% increase in customer adoption since the beginning of 2025. SecurePlus delivers security-focused features, including remote access to the home network and household-wide password management. The service is available a la carte for $8 a month or as part of an ultimate WiFi bundle introduced last November at $24.99 monthly.
Laulis said the “bundle is resonating well with customers, with 17% of new customers choosing it this quarter, a strong signal that our approach is aligned with the needs of today's connected homes.”
However, new products are only part of the growth equation.
Cable One is leveraging new strategic infrastructure innovations that support long-term growth, including reengineering its approach to selecting and executing new builds to acquire customers more efficiently.
Laulis said this process is starting to pay off. “We're beginning to see early signs that this is working. Stronger early penetration means we now expect the same number of passings to yield more customers within the first two quarters of release,” she said.
Revenue challenges, opportunities
A rise in broadband churn and lower broadband ARPU affected Cable One’s overall first-quarter earnings revenue results.
Total revenues were $380.6 million in the first quarter of 2025, compared to $404.3 million in the first quarter of 2024. Residential data revenues decreased $10.7 million, or 4.5%, year over year.
Residential data subscribers and ARPU decreased by 1.1% during the first quarter.
Despite the losses, Cable One's CFO, Todd Koetje, said the company has “confidence in our execution strategy to deliver residential broadband revenue growth in 2025.”
Further, he noted that the ongoing migration of customers from traditional linear to online video services impacted its results.
“The remaining decrease in total revenue was primarily attributable to a decrease in residential video revenues of $9.6 million or 15.8% year-over-year, driven by losses in video subscribers as we continue to navigate the final phases of our video product life cycle,” Koetje said.
One bright spot in the revenue cycle was business services.
Driven by enterprise and wholesale carrier customer wins, Cable One’s business services unit reported data revenues rose 1.2% to $57.3 million.
“Our carrier and enterprise fiber businesses remained strong, delivering consistent results with an average contract term of about five years,” Koetje said. “Carrier sales reached their highest monthly levels since 2022, and we secured several new multimillion-dollar long-term contracts that add recurring revenue and expand our network reach into new commercial areas, setting the stage for future growth.”
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Sean Buckley
Sean is responsible for establishing and executing the editorial strategies of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report across their websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products.