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State AG suing Time Warner for slow service, wants St. Lawrence County residents to report internet speed on his website

Posted 2/20/17

Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman wants St. Lawrence County residents to test their internet speeds and submit the results via his website. He seeks the information as part of an ongoing …

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State AG suing Time Warner for slow service, wants St. Lawrence County residents to report internet speed on his website

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Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman wants St. Lawrence County residents to test their internet speeds and submit the results via his website.

He seeks the information as part of an ongoing investigation into whether or not internet service providers are delivering on the speeds and services promised.

Schneiderman’s office’s is suing Charter Communications Inc. (“Charter”) and its subsidiary Spectrum Management Holdings, LLC, (Time Warner Cable, Inc.,) (together, “Spectrum-TWC”) for allegedly conducting “a deliberate scheme to defraud and mislead New Yorkers by promising Internet service that they knew they could not deliver.”

The attorney general says he is also urging New Yorkers to use his new consumer alert as a tool in selecting the internet service plan that best suits their needs.

“Millions of New York families and businesses depend on reliable internet for everything from running a business to communicating with family and friends,” Schneiderman said in a news release. “No one should be paying a premium for speeds and services they aren’t receiving. Conducting a speed test will ensure people are getting the speed they’re paying for, and I urge New Yorkers to submit their results and help my office continue to hold service providers accountable."

Spectrum-Time Warner Cable is the largest supplier of Internet service in the state. The complaint alleges that since January 2012 Spectrum-TWC’s marketing promised subscribers who signed up for its internet service that they would get a "fast, reliable connection" to the Internet from anywhere in their home. A 16-month investigation by the Attorney General’s office – which included reviewing internal corporate communications and hundreds of thousands of subscriber speed tests – found Spectrum-Time Warner subscribers were getting dramatically short-changed on both speed and reliability.

The Attorney General’s Office looked into thousands of complaints from New York subscribers, including more than 300 from Western New York.

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.

Go to goo.gl/ryjX32 to read more about the lawsuit.

Consumers can check to see what speed they’re actually receiving, rather than relying on the promises of their internet service provider.

Online tools include:

Measurement Lab’s Internet Health Test http://internethealthtest.org/?metro=lga

Oookla http://www.speedtest.net/

DSL Reports http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest

If not receiving the speed that is being paid for, Schneiderman recommends to find out why and call one’s internet service provider. The problem may be as simple as needing to move a router to a better location, or it could be an issue that only a provider can fix such as performing network maintenance.