The New York Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against Time Warner Cable, now owned by Charter Communications, over slower-than-advertised internet speeds.
Eric Schneiderman, the NY Attorney General, announced on Wednesday, Feb. 1 that the lawsuit filed in the New York State Supreme Court charged Spectrum Management Holding Co. and Charter for defrauding broadband customers with internet speeds far lower than they promised.
Spectrum Management Holding Co. is the new name of Time Warner Cable's broadband service, since Charter acquired it.
Spectrum-TWC Internet Speeds Defrauding Customers
Marketing material dating back to January 2012 from Spectrum-TWC promised a "fast, reliable connection" anywhere within a household, notes the lawsuit. In a long investigation spanning over 16 months, however, the AG's office discovered that broadband speeds were in fact a whopping 70 percent lower than advertised, while Wi-Fi speeds were 80 percent lower than promised.
Some customers shelled out as much as $109.99 per month for the service, yet they only got a third to a half of the internet speeds they paid for, the complaint further points out.
The complaint outlines that Spectrum-TWC's scheme promised consumers that they would get internet speeds throughout their homes as advertised in various subscription plans.
Knowingly Ripping Off Customers
Spectrum-TWC failed to keep its promise because it leased older-generation modems to many of its subscribers, as well as Wi-Fi routers that it knew could not achieve the promised internet speeds. At the same time, Spectrum-TWC failed to make necessary adjustments to its network, such as increasing the number of channels for each service group, as well as the size of the service groups, which would allow customers to receive the promised internet speeds.
"Not only did Spectrum-TWC fail to deliver the promised Internet speeds, it repeatedly assured subscribers that they could achieve the same results with wireless as with a wired connection, even when it knew that the wireless connection suffered from unavoidable, real-world limitations," adds the complaint.
The allegations made in the NY AG's lawsuit confirm what many New Yorkers have been complaining about for a good while now - that Spectrum-TWC is ripping them off.
Charter Is Disappointed
Spectrum-TWC fails to deliver on its promised internet speeds even now, and the AG wants to make things right. Charter, for its part, offered a statement to USA Today expressing its disappointment in this lawsuit.
"We are disappointed that the NY Attorney General chose to file this lawsuit regarding Time Warner Cable's broadband speed advertisements that occurred prior to Charter's merger," Charter tells USA Today. "Charter made significant commitments to NY State as part of our merger with Time Warner Cable in areas of network investment, broadband deployment and offerings, customer service and jobs."
Recent reports indicated that Verizon was interested in acquiring Time Warner Cable parent Charter to better compete AT&T, which already acquired DirecTV and is waiting to finalize a deal with Time Warner (different company from Time Warner Cable). It remains to be seen whether this lawsuit against Charter and Time Warner Cable will affect the purported deal, but it will likely not have a major impact on the matter.
