Charter Spectrum Fails To Wiggle Out From Under State Lawsuit For Crappy Service

from the fat-lady-has-yet-to-sing dept

Early last year, Charter Spectrum was sued by New York Attorney Eric Schneiderman for selling broadband speeds the company knew it couldn't deliver. According to the original complaint (pdf), Charter routinely advertised broadband speeds executives knew weren't attainable -- while simultaneously refusing to upgrade their network to handle added consumer demand (a problem that only got worse in the wake of its merger with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks despite promises of ample "synergies"):

"The AG’s investigation also found that Spectrum-TWC executives knew that the company’s hardware and network were incapable of achieving the speeds promised to subscribers, but nevertheless continued to make false representations about speed and reliability. The investigation further revealed that while Spectrum-TWC earned billions of dollars in profits from selling its high-margin Internet service to millions of New York subscribers, it repeatedly declined to make capital investments necessary to improve its network or provide subscribers with the necessary hardware."

But the lawsuit also exposed how Charter was gaming an FCC program that uses routers with custom firmware to track real-world ISP performance. The lawsuit also hints at the fact that Charter executives toyed with intentionally creating congestion at peering points in order to extract additional money out of content and transit companies, something you'll recall was at the heart of an industry battle with Netflix a few years ago. Those problems miraculously disappeared with the passage of net neutrality rules that governed interconnection (read: expect this problem to resurface with the elimination of the rules).

Charter, unsurprisingly, has argued that the lawsuit is without merit. It also tried to have the lawsuit dismissed, claiming that the FCC's recent repeal of net neutrality includes a provision (lobbied for by ISPs) that prohibits states from trying to hold ISPs accountable for service shortcomings, be they privacy infractions or net neutrality violations. Fortunately for broadband users stuck under cable's growing U.S. broadband monopoly, New York State's Supreme Court last week shot down that argument (pdf) in a ruling.

The court argued repeatedly that despite the FCC attempts to pre-empt state authority over broadband ISPs, both the FCC repeal and existing federal law make it clear states still have a role to play in holding ISPs accountable for consumer protection:

"Spectrum-TWC fails to identify any provision of the FCA (Federal Communications Act) that preempts state anti-fraud or consumer-protection claims, or reflects any intention by Congress to make federal law the exclusive source of law protecting consumers from broadband providers' deceptive conduct."

Schneiderman's office was quick to applaud the ruling in a statement:

"This decision ensures that our office can continue to hold Charter-Spectrum to account for its failure to deliver the reliable internet speeds it promised consumers. The allegations in our lawsuit confirm what millions of New Yorkers have long suspected — Charter-Spectrum has been ripping you off, promising internet speeds it simply could not deliver."

As we've been noting, Charter, Comcast, AT&T and Verizon lobbyists have been busy trying to gut all state and federal oversight of broadband ISPs in an effort that goes well beyond just killing net neutrality. That should be an obvious problem, given that the combination of limited competition and regulatory capture tends to not end particularly well for American consumers historically (Comcast being exhibit A). But with this ruling and the 26 states busy passing their own net neutrality rules in the wake of the federal repeal, that's going to be a steeper and more expensive uphill climb than many ISP lobbyists anticipated.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, consumer protection, eric schneiderman, false claims, new york
Companies: charter spectrum

Congress Pressures FCC Boss Over His Total Failure To Police Net Neutrality Comment Fraud

from the complete-non-transparency dept

By now it's pretty apparent that the FCC doesn't much want to talk about who was behind the numerous bogus comments that flooded the agency's net neutrality repeal proceeding. When I asked the FCC for help after someone lifted my identity to support repealing the rules, the FCC responded with the policy equivalent of a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Similarly, when New York Attorney General Eric Shneiderman approached the FCC looking for help identifying the culprit (9 requests over 5 months, he said in an open letter), the FCC blocked the investigation.

Most analysts believe the effort was a ham-fisted attempt to erode trust in the public comment proceeding in order to downplay massive public opposition to the FCC's plan (a tactic that has mysteriously plagued other government proceedings over the last year). The FCC could pretty quickly clear this all up by providing access to server logs and API key usage details to law enforcement. Its consistent refusal to do so quickly dismantles agency boss Ajit Pai's continued, breathless claims that he's a massive fan of transparency and would run a more transparent operation than his predecessor.

This week, members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce sent a letter to Pai again asking him to explain (pdf) why the FCC ignored the public and sat on its hands as millions of bogus comments (some of them from dead people) piled up. Included in the questions were inquiries regarding how the FCC (which says it ignored comments "devoid of substance") determined what public comments were worth paying attention to, if any:

"How were comments determined to be “devoid of substance”? How were others determined to “bear substantively” on the issue? What were the training methods and guidelines for staff making these determinations? How many staff hours were dedicated to this?"

Pai was also asked why he doesn't think helping law enforcement get to the bottom of the scandal is a good idea:

"Why has the FCC failed to cooperate with the NY attorney general’s investigation into potential identity theft?"

And why didn't the agency implement any kind of screening process to help ferret out bulk, bogus comments (many of which were submitted by a bot in purely alphabetical order):

"Why did the FCC choose to not implement any kind of identity verification in its comment platform? The FCC says it excluded comments that used fake names, but how was it determined which these were? And if it is known which comments used fake names, why were these comments not removed from the docket?

Of course like previous inquiries, Pai isn't likely to respond -- at least not with any answers that provide real meaning. Since ISPs have been obnoxiously successful falsely framing net neutrality as a partisan issue, and the letter sent to Pai consists largely of Democrats, it will be relatively easy to dismiss the inquiry as little more than partisan gamesmanship. You'd just have to ignore the fact that an open, healthy internet free of domination by telecom monopolies benefits everyone, or the fact that polls routinely show net neutrality has broad, bipartisan support.

It's not hard for the FCC to identify who was behind the effort, and given the attack only benefits either the telecom industry or the folks in the Trump administration pushing the repeal, the short list of culprits is arguably tiny. But while Pai apparently has zero interest in helping find out who was behind the disinformation campaign, it's likely additional details will emerge courtesy of the countless lawsuits currently heading the FCC's general direction.

Filed Under: ajit pai, congress, eric schneiderman, fake comments, fcc, house energy and commerce committee, transparency

NY Attorney General Finds 2 Million Fake FCC Net Neutrality Comments

from the zombie-votes dept

As Ajit Pai's attack on net neutrality rolls along, it's worth a steady reminder that the FCC's open commenting period for the public was marred by spam-bots inserting comments from some list somewhere, all in support of Pai's actions. In other words, the period during which the FCC is supposed to listen to the general public for feedback never actually existed, masked as it was by these fraudulent comments.

Eric Schneiderman, the New York Attorney General, about whom we've not always written kindly, set up a searchable site through which you can find if you or anyone you know has their names in these FCC comments and, if their comment is in support of the government, you can verify whether you or they actually made that comment or not. You might be surprised by the answer you get, however, as Schneiderman announced this week that they have found -- so far -- that at least two million fake comments used real people's names to support Pai and the FCC.

"Millions of fake comments have corrupted the FCC public process—including two million that stole the identities of real people, a crime under New York law," Schneiderman said in an announcement today. "Yet the FCC is moving full steam ahead with a vote based on this corrupted process, while refusing to cooperate with an investigation."

Some comments were submitted under the names of dead people.

"My LATE husband's name was fraudulently used after a valiant battle with cancer," one person told the AG's office. "This unlawful act adds to my pain that someone would violate his good name."

I actually have a family member who's name was used in this way as well, so this touches somewhat close to home. Now, it's worth noting that these two million fake comments are just those that use other's very real names. It is not a sum total of all fake comments that might be included in the 23 million or so that the FCC collected. But if we're already starting from a place where we know for sure that 8 or 9 percent of those comments are fraudulent right off the bat, you'd assume Pai and the FCC would be some kind of interested in figuring out how this all happened.

But Pai has gone the other direction on all of this. He, or his spokespeople, have made odd noises about "erring on the side of inclusion" regarding these astroturf comments, all of which conveniently support him. If bending over backwards to make sure his FCC considers the opinions of the dead and those who have had their names misused just to make sure his ISP clients constituents get to ISP all over the open internet isn't the biggest slap in the face I've ever seen, then I don't know what would be. Meanwhile, Schneiderman is trying to investigate all of this since, you know, an actual crime was committed here, and has been essentially stonewalled by Pai and the FCC. This week he fired off a letter to the FCC, desperately trying to get them to cooperate with his investigation.

One might expect a federal agency to harbor a great deal of concern when faced with strong evidence of a massive fraud uncovered by multiple sources—including, most recently, The Wall Street Journal—that appears to have thoroughly infected its most important rulemaking since the establishment of net neutrality more than a decade ago. Yet, over the objections of a growing bipartisan coalition of over thirty members of both houses of Congress, 18 [other] state attorneys general, and FCC Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn, the Commission's leadership appears determined to proceed with its December 14 vote. Moving forward with this vote would make a mockery of the notice and comment process mandated by the Administrative Procedure Act and reward those who perpetrated this fraud in service of their own hidden agenda.

The most cynical among us might think that the agenda isn't so hidden, if it was indeed Pai or someone associated with him pulling this all off. That's overly conspiratorial, perhaps, except that Pai's lame excuses of protecting privacy for not turning over commonplace evidence such as IP addresses to the NY AG's office makes this all look really, really dirty.

Regardless, it's clear the public record during the comment period was nullified by these fake comments. To date, 19 AGs from across the country have called for a delay in the FCC's vote so that they can investigate all of this. Pai, as has become his custom, isn't listening, despite wanting to err on the side of inclusion.

Filed Under: comments, eric schneiderman, fake comments, fcc

New York AG Provides Tool To Help You Check If Your Name Was Used To Support Killing Net Neutrality

from the shenanigans dept

So we've noted several times now how the FCC's open comment period for its Orwell-inspired "Restoring Internet Freedom" net neutrality proceeding was simply awash in all manner of fraud. From bots that filled the comment proceeding with bogus support from fake or even dead people, to fake DDoS attacks intended to downplay the wash of angry users that flooded to the agency's website in protest. All of this stuff is more than likely to pop up in the inevitable lawsuits that are filed in the new year after the net neutrality repeal formally hits the federal register.

In addition, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman recently stated he has been conducting an investigation for the last six months into these bogus comments. In a letter recently sent to FCC boss Ajit Pai, Schneiderman notes that he reached out to the FCC nine times over a period of five months to get the agency's help in getting a closer look at the APIs and server logs related to the fraud campaign. And that time and time again the FCC ignored its request:

"Specifically, for six months my office has been investigating who perpetrated a massive scheme to corrupt the FCC’s notice and comment process through the misuse of enormous numbers of real New Yorkers’ and other Americans’ identities. Such conduct likely violates state law — yet the FCC has refused multiple requests for crucial evidence in its sole possession that is vital to permit that law enforcement investigation to proceed.

We reached out for assistance to multiple top FCC officials, including you, three successive acting FCC General Counsels, and the FCC’s Inspector General. We offered to keep the requested records confidential, as we had done when my office and the FCC shared information and documents as part of past investigative work.

Yet we have received no substantive response to our investigative requests. None."

That mirrors my own experience in trying to get the FCC's help after somebody hijacked my identity (and the identity of one of my employers) to falsely claim (twice, using two different bogus addresses) I support killing net neutrality protections. The general consensus is that while the FCC isn't likely directly behind this fraudulent activity, it's refusing to help because 1) exposing the culprit could expose the industry-linked groups behind it and 2) raising questions about the legitimacy of the one chance the public had to give feedback helps downplay the massive public opposition to the FCC's plan.

Regardless, the NY AG is proceeding with its investigation without the FCC's help. As part of that push, it has revealed a new tool on its website that lets you check to see if your name was improperly used to support killing net neutrality. Those findings are then submitted to the AG for use in its investigation and as evidence in any looming lawsuits.

Again, this is just one potential avenue of inquiry into this entire, rather grotesque affair. The FCC is also being sued by journalists for ignoring FOIA requests related to the comment fraud, for refusing to be transparent about its meetings with large ISPs eager to see the rules repealed, and for hiding details of the DDoS attack that wasn't. These will all be joined by numerous lawsuits in the new year filed by consumer groups and smaller companies, who are likely chomping at the bit to prove the FCC violated agency procedure (and potentially the law) in its rush to give consumers the tech policy equivalent of a giant middle finger.

Filed Under: comments, eric schneiderman, fcc, net neutrality

ISPs Are Already Using The FCC's Planned Net Neutrality Repeal To Harm Consumers

from the somebody-is-killing-all-the-babysitters dept

So if you've been reading Techdirt, you know that the FCC's myopic assault on net neutrality is just a small part of a massive, paradigm-shifting handout to the uncompetitive telecom sector that could have a profoundly negative impact on competition, innovation, privacy, and consumer welfare for the next decade.

The government telecom industry's plan goes something like this: gut nearly all FCC oversight of giant ISPs (including the modest privacy protections killed earlier this year), then shovel any dwindling remaining authority to an FTC that lacks the authority or resources to actually protect competition, businesses and consumers. If any states get the crazy idea to step in and try to fill in the consumer protection gaps, the FCC (again, at Comcast and Verizon's lobbying behest) has clearly stated it will try and use federal authority to slap them down (so much for that dedication to "states rights" applied only when convenient).

You should, hopefully, see how this could pose problems for anybody other than Charter, Comcast, Verizon and AT&T. In fact, Charter lawyers this week are already providing us with a look at precisely what this is going to look like in practice.

You might recall that earlier this year, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued Charter for effectively ripping off consumers. Among the numerous charges levied in the complaint (pdf) was the fact that Charter falsely advertised speeds it couldn't deliver, used all manner of misleading fees to jack up the cost of advertised services (something it's facing other lawsuits over), and may have manipulated peering point capacity to force content and transit operators into paying more money.

The complaint features Charter executives on e-mail indicating they manipulated congestion levels to trick SamKnows, a firm the FCC employs to track whether ISPs deliver the speeds they advertise (instead of, you know, fixing the problem by adding needed ports and capacity):

"Our Sam Knows scores are like watching a slow-motion train wreck. We need to get in front of this. One thing I think we may need to be prepared to do is just give more ports to Cogent during sweeps month [when FCC results are measured for purposes of the MBA report]. We don’t have to make any promises, we just have to make it work temporarily."

You might recall that when the FCC's 2015 net neutrality rules indicated the FCC might take a closer look at such interconnection shenanigans, said interconnection fisticuffs magically ceased. And now, with the FCC poised to repeal net neutrality rules, Charter lawyers are busy arguing in court that this federal authority (which in reality is lobbyist-induced apathy) trumps any state attempts to protect consumers:

"Of particular relevance here, the Draft Order includes an extensive discussion of the interplay between federal and state law, including with respect to the transparency rule on which Charter has relied in arguing that federal law preempts the Attorney General’s allegations that Time Warner Cable made deceptive claims about its broadband speeds," writes Charter attorney Christopher Clark, from Latham & Watkins. "Consistent with the FCC’s statements in prior orders and enforcement advisories, the Draft Order 'conclude[s] that regulation of broadband Internet access service should be governed principally by a uniform set of federal regulations, rather than by a patchwork of separate state and local requirements.'"

In other words, the FCC's handout to industry is already providing them with ammunition to dodge accountability for dodgy business practices on the state level as well. And again, this goes well beyond net neutrality -- it's a wholesale dismantling of oversight for some of the least-competitive and least ethical companies in America (if you need evidence of this, consult the Techdirt archives). Needless to say, Schneiderman's office disagrees with Charter's argument that its case should be derailed because the federal government no longer cares about consumer welfare:

"Spectrum-TWC failed to maintain enough network capacity in the form of interconnection ports to deliver this promised content to its subscribers without slowdowns, interruptions, and data loss," stated an opposition brief. "It effectively 'throttled' access to Netflix and other content providers by allowing the ports through which its network interconnects with data coming from those providers to degrade, causing slowdowns. Spectrum-TWC then extracted payments from those content providers as a condition for upgrading the ports As a result, Spectrum-TWC’s subscribers could not reliably access the content they were promised, and instead were subjected to the buffering, slowdowns and other interruptions in service that they had been assured they would not encounter."

Again, companies like Charter and Comcast are breathlessly promising that nothing will change in the wake of the net neutrality rules' repeal. But that's not only an obvious lie (why spend millions to repeal consumer protections you have no intention of abusing?), but it overshadows the fact that, again, this isn't just about net neutrality. It's about gutting oversight of these duopolies almost entirely on both the federal and state level, leaving few, if any agencies capable of holding these companies accountable the next time they try to abuse a lack of market competition.

In other words, if you thought behavior by giant cable companies like Comcast and Charter is obnoxious now, you likely haven't seen anything yet. Unless you're one of these folks that truly believes that removing all regulatory oversight of natural mono/duopolies magically fixes everything -- in which case your beliefs are about to be tested.

Filed Under: ajit pai, eric schneiderman, fcc, net neutrality
Companies: charter, samknows

NY Attorney General Investigating Why Dead People Supported The FCC's Attack On Net Neutrality

from the something-doesn't-smell-right dept

So as we've been noting for a while, the FCC's policy order taking aim at net neutrality has been rife with all kinds of bizarre and fraudulent behavior, from the agency's made up DDOS attack (apparently a ham-fisted PR attempt to downplay the "John Oliver effect") to the numerous fake or otherwise dead people that have oddly supported the agency's unpopular plan in the FCC's comment proceeding. It's clear the FCC's plan is extremely unpopular, and it's also clear the agency, ISPs and some policy groups have engaged in some extremely dodgy behavior to try and downplay that fact.

The GAO is already investigating the FCC's bogus DDOS claims, and the FCC is already being sued for turning a blind eye to the problem and ignoring FOIA requests. The fraudulent comments by fake or otherwise non-breathing individuals will surely play a starring role in the inevitable lawsuits against the agency. If evidence is found that the FCC violated procedural norms (or hey, the law), it could help to reverse the agency's myopic and unpopular hand out to the nation's telecom duopolies.

The latest is that the New York Attorney General also acknowledged that his office has been looking into the fake comments submitted to the FCC's net neutrality proceeding. Early analysis had found that a massive portion of the 22 million public comments on the agency's plan came from a group or individual using a bot to stuff the ballot box with phony support for the plan. Many of these names were pulled from a hacked database of some kind, with many of the individuals in question stating they had never even visited the FCC website and have no idea what net neutrality even is.

Throughout all of this, the FCC has turned a blind eye to the fraud occurring on its website, likely because it helps the agency downplay the massive public backlash against the plan. And according to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the FCC rather unsurprisingly refused to aid his office in investigating what group or individual was behind the phony support, despite nine requests for data between June and November of this year:

"Specifically, for six months my office has been investigating who perpetrated a massive scheme to corrupt the FCC’s notice and comment process through the misuse of enormous numbers of real New Yorkers’ and other Americans’ identities. Such conduct likely violates state law — yet the FCC has refused multiple requests for crucial evidence in its sole possession that is vital to permit that law enforcement investigation to proceed.

We reached out for assistance to multiple top FCC officials, including you, three successive acting FCC General Counsels, and the FCC’s Inspector General. We offered to keep the requested records confidential, as we had done when my office and the FCC shared information and documents as part of past investigative work.

Yet we have received no substantive response to our investigative requests. None."

It's unlikely that the FCC is dumb enough to have engaged in this fraud itself. But the telecom sector is filled with ISP-funded proxy groups that have engaged in this kind of nonsense in the past. The FCC could easily put this issue to bed by providing a closer look at who used the necessary APIs to file these comments en masse. Of course that might expose not only the group responsible but the folks funding the effort, and we certainly wouldn't want that.

As I found out personally, it's clear the FCC approves of the fraud occurring on its website, because raising questions about the integrity of the public comment system allows it to downplay the groundswell of opposition to the plan. But if the truth comes out in AG investigations or the inevitable lawsuits expected later this year, the FCC's victorious dismantling of popular consumer protections could prove to be short lived.

Filed Under: ajit pai, comments, dead people, eric schneiderman, fcc, net neutrality

Charter Tries To Tap Dance Out Of Lawsuit Over Substandard Broadband

from the we-don't-have-to-care----we're-the-cable-company dept

Last month, we noted how New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued Charter Communications for knowingly providing broadband service well below advertised speeds. After an initial first read I didn't think much of the lawsuit (pdf), but upon closer inspection it provides some pretty damning evidence that Charter not only knowingly failed to provide decent service (and just didn't care, since this is the uncompetitive broadband industry), but in some instances actively made connections worse for its own competitive advantage.

The AG's suit highlights how Charter manipulated data for a program run by the FCC to monitor consumer connection speeds. This program, co-operated by a UK outfit dubbed SamKnows, gives volunteers custom-firmware embedded routers to monitor connection quality and speed. The FCC was then using this data to name and shame ISPs that failed to deliver advertised speeds. The lawsuit highlights how Charter executives worked to intentionally deliver faster speeds to just these customers in order to trick the FCC into believing its network was performing better than it actually was.

The suit also seemed to confirm something that content and transit operators have been complaining about for a few years -- namely that large incumbent ISPs were intentionally letting interconnection points get saturated to extract additional fees from backbone and content providers like Netflix. This behavior quickly ended thanks in large part to the FCC's new net neutrality rules, which currently protect such interconnection relationships from abuse by incumbent telecom mono/duopolies. With these rules possibly dying this year, it's a problem you can be sure will re-emerge.

Not too surprisingly, Charter is trying to have this case thrown out. Recent court filings (pdf) indicate that the company successfully had the case moved from state to federal court, with Charter lawyers arguing that the Communications Act completely preempted claims under state law. Charter lawyers even went so far as to justify this position using the exact same 2015 FCC net neutrality rules ISPs lobbied, repeatedly, to destroy:

"Charter even went so far as quoting language from the FCC's 2015 Open Internet Order (aka the net neutrality regulations) to support the proposition that states are precluded from imposing obligations inconsistent with the FCC's regulatory regime.

According to defendants' court papers providing notice of removal, "Given the State’s distortion of the speed tests approved by the FCC and its reliance on other tests that the FCC does not require or endorse, if the 'state court vindicate[s] [the State’s claim], the relief granted would necessarily force [Defendants] to do more than required by the FCC.' The State is, in effect, 'trying to invalidate' disclosures made pursuant to the FCC’s reporting regime; its claim thus is necessarily federal."

With the new Trump FCC making it very clear that incumbent ISPs are going to get a free pass on the consumer protection front, the states (with an even more inconsistent track record on consumer protection than the federal government) may wind up being the only thing standing between you and the dubious ethics of companies like AT&T, Charter and Comcast:

"On Monday, the NY AG's office filed a motion to remand the case back to state court. The forthcoming decision could be an important one if other top legal officials in states across the nation attempt to fill the void of whatever the FCC is not doing....Schneiderman's attorneys argue that the lawsuit is "rooted entirely in the kind of consumer deception that is within the traditional purview of state law and is historically subject to enforcement in state court."

Charter's in a somewhat unique position due to conditions attached to the company's recent acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. Those conditions banned the company from not only imposing usage caps, but also require it to continue to adhere to the FCC's net neutrality rules (including the interconnection provisions) for seven years -- even if they're dismantled by ISPs and loyal politicians this year. Other ISPs face no such restrictions, and depending on Charter's success here, incumbent ISPs may soon find themselves in a new golden era for anti-competitive behavior.

Filed Under: broadband, eric schneiderman, false advertising, fcc, jurisdiction, net neutrality, new york, speed tests

New York AG Sues Charter For Slow Broadband Speeds, Says Company 'Ripping Off' Users With Substandard Service

from the the-George-Carlin-definition-of-customer-service dept

For some time now, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman has been taking broadband companies to task for advertising broadband speeds they consistently fail to deliver. Last year, Schneiderman's office brought in Tim Wu, Columbia professor and the man who coined the term net neutrality, to help dig into the data. With Wu as the AG's "senior lawyer and special adviser," Schneiderman sent letters to NYC area broadband incumbents Verizon, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable -- questioning whether they actually deliver the speeds they advertise.

This morning, Schneiderman made his findings clear via a lawsuit against Charter Communications, which accuses the cable giant of "defrauding" millions of customers by advertising broadband speeds it's incapable of delivering. According to the AG's compiled data and full complaint (pdf), Charter routinely and consistently advertised "fast, reliable connections" that were anything but:

"The suit alleges that subscribers’ wired internet speeds for the premium plan (100, 200, and 300 Mbps) were up to 70 percent slower than promised; WiFi speeds were even slower, with some subscribers getting speeds that were more than 80 percent slower than what they had paid for. As alleged in the complaint, Spectrum-TWC charged New Yorkers as much as $109.99 per month for premium plans could not achieve speeds promised in their slower plans.

The complaint also alleges that Charter (now branded as Spectrum) and Time Warner Cable (recently acquired in Charter's recent $79 billion megamerger) knew full well they were shortchanging customers and lagging in necessary upgrades, and they just didn't give much of a damn:

"The AG’s investigation also found that Spectrum-TWC executives knew that the company’s hardware and network were incapable of achieving the speeds promised to subscribers, but nevertheless continued to make false representations about speed and reliability. The investigation further revealed that while Spectrum-TWC earned billions of dollars in profits from selling its high-margin Internet service to millions of New York subscribers, it repeatedly declined to make capital investments necessary to improve its network or provide subscribers with the necessary hardware."

It's worth noting that government data fairly consistently shows that ISPs usually deliver advertised speeds. Back in 2011, the FCC began recruiting volunteers who use custom-firmware embedded routers to provide real-world broadband connection performance data. Initially, the FCC found that many ISPs didn't deliver advertised speeds. But as the agency increasingly named and shamed the worst offenders, many ISPs began over-provisioning their broadband tiers -- effectively giving users more bandwidth than was advertised. The program was a relative success, but it's not likely to be continued under the new, more industry cozy FCC.

That said, the volume of traffic generated by New York City residents requires a little extra effort; effort that tends to not materialize when companies face limited competition. In New York, Charter acquired Time Warner Cable, whose biggest competitor was Verizon -- a company that has little to no interest in even being in the fixed-line broadband market, and has taken repeated heat from New York City officials for failing to uniformly upgrade the company's fiber network (taking subsidies and tax breaks then failing to do much with them has been Verizon's MO for a generation).

To be clear, Schneiderman drawing attention to Charter's failure is generally a good thing. That said, failures to track how subsidies are spent, failures to hold ISPs accountable for failed promises, the relentless thirst for consolidation, and the negative repercussions of blindly approving telecom megamergers -- are all ignored by most regulators (and Schneiderman) pretty much on a weekly basis. So when someone like this comes sweeping in late in the game to protect consumers, you should probably ask why they aren't doing more, more consistently, to protect telecom customers before the bill arrives.

With the priority in the telecom sector being megamergers, buying protectionist state laws and extracting ever-more money for the same relatively dismal service, it's not particularly surprising that the companies offer poor service at high prices, with some of the worst customer service in any industry in America. And with a Trump-era FCC preparing to let these companies dictate telecom policy for the forseeable future, and Wall Street gushing over the idea of a possible Verizon-Charter supermerger, you'd have to use some pretty creative mathematics to suggest this scenario gets better anytime soon, belated NY AG lawsuit or not.

Filed Under: advertised speeds, broadband, eric schneiderman, ny, service
Companies: charter

Tim Wu Joins NY AG's Office In Shaming 'Abysmal' Cable Broadband ISPs

from the stating-the-obvious dept

Last fall, we noted how New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office had launched an investigation into awful broadband service quality. In and of itself that was nothing particularly interesting (especially given Schneiderman's history of grandstanding), though what made the inquiry of note is the office's hiring of Tim Wu, the Columbia Law professor who first coined the term "net neutrality" back in 2002. With Wu as the AG's "senior lawyer and special adviser," Schneiderman sent letters to NYC area broadband incumbents Verizon, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable -- questioning whether they actually deliver the speeds they advertise.

So far this inquiry doesn't appear to have culminated in much of anything beyond a recent letter sent to Charter CEO Tom Rutledge (pdf) warning him that he needs to dramatically improve the "abysmal" service offered by one of the company's recently acquired properties, Time Warner Cable. According to the AG's letter, tests conducted by volunteers show that Time Warner Cable connections consistently fail to achieve advertised data rates:

"The results we received from Time Warner Cable customers were abysmal. Not only did Time Warner Cable fail to achieve the speeds its customers were promised and paid for (which Time Warner Cable blamed on the testing method), it generally performed worse in this regard than other New York broadband providers. In short, what we have seen in our investigation so far suggests that Time Warner Cable has earned the miserable reputation it enjoys among consumers. Overcoming this history will require more than a name change; it will require a fundamental revolution in how Time Warner Cable does business and treats its customers.

This, of course, is not really a new revelation. Limited competition historically leaves large ISPs with no incentive to seriously upgrade infrastructure or customer support, resulting in the cable companies most of us know and love. And while the letter promises Charter's CEO the NY AG's office will "be in touch soon to propose next steps," the AG hasn't really offered a solution so far. And the letter comes just as New York State joins federal regulators in approving Charter's $79 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, a deal most consumer advocates warn simply creates another Comcast with the size, scope and power to ensure broadband remains marginally competitive at best.

While the AG's office appears to have used a relatively simple speed test to collect the data, a far more comprehensive study by the FCC last year (using custom-firmware embedded routers in user homes) found that roughly 10% of Time Warner Cable customers got less than 80% of their advertised speeds during prime time, 15% received 80 to 95% of their advertised speeds, while 75% got more than 95% of advertised speeds. That's not perfection, but it doesn't really rise to the level of "abysmal," either.

In fact, that same FCC study found that the majority of the ISPs measured do consistently deliver advertised speeds, and since the FCC began conducting these studies -- some ISPs have even taken to offering a little more than what's advertised to avoid public shaming of this type. The problem with the AG's inquiry is that, historically, speed hasn't really been as large of an issue as horrible customer service, sneaky misleading fees and high prices, the last two of which federal and state regulators have a long, proud history of completely ignoring. And unless the AG has some magical way to address a lack of competition in the market, harsh letters stating the obvious may not really accomplish all that much.

Filed Under: broadband, eric schneiderman, new york, shaming, speeds, tim wu
Companies: cablevision, time warner cable, verizon