New York Sues Time Warner For Slow, Overpriced Internet

ALBANY, NY — The state's top lawyer announced Wednesday that he's suing Time Warner Cable, recently rebranded as Spectrum, for "systematically and knowingly [failing] to deliver the reliable and fast internet access it promised to subscribers across the state."

For more local news delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to your neighborhood Patch newsletter and real-time news alerts.

It took New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office 16 months of investigating to determine what we've all known forever: that Time Warner and its new parent company, Charter Communications, has been conducting "a deliberate scheme to defraud and mislead New Yorkers by promising internet service that they knew they could not deliver."

"It's as if Starbucks said, 'This is 18 ounces,' and it's actually 6 ounces," Schneiderman said Wednesday.

Charter Communications management responded to the suit by saying they were "disappointed" that the attorney general decided to dredge up old data from before Time Warner's Spring 2016 merger with Charter.

Charter "has already made substantial investments in the interest of upgrading the Time Warner Cable systems and delivering the best possible experience to customers," the company argued.

To that, the attorney general countered:

If Schneiderman beats Time Warner in court, customers could see a major payday.

Although it's not exactly clear how much money each of Time Warner's 2.5 million New York customers would receive, Schneiderman has instructed the company to determine the difference between what New Yorkers paid for crappy internet speeds and the value of what they were actually getting. Based on those figures, Time Warner — now Spectrum — would then be required to "make full restitution to consumers and pay damages caused, directly or indirectly, by the fraudulent and deceptive acts."

As Schneiderman said at his Wednesday press conference: "We are seeking reimbursement for customers who were ripped off" between January 2012 and the present.

Here are some of the attorney general's most damning (and for we the frustrated customer base, quite cathartic and validating) findings:

• 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
• Spectrum-TWC leased deficient modem equipment to subscribers that could not deliver the promised speeds
• Spectrum-TWC ignored its own engineers and promised subscribers a home WiFi experience that was beyond the technical limits of its equipment and WiFi technology
• Spectrum-TWC did not design the network to reliably deliver the promised speeds
• Spectrum-TWC decided to cut costs by not fixing the equipment and network failures
• To mask its misconduct, the complaint alleges that Spectrum-TWC rigged test results

In order to deliver the internet speeds it promised, Shneiderman found, Time Warner would have had to go about "substantially upgrading Spectrum-TWC’s network capability and replacing large numbers of deficient modems and wireless routers that subscribers currently pay Spectrum-TWC up to $10 per month to rent."

The attorney general is also seeking "injunctive relief" — meaning he wants a judge to order Spectrum to align its service quality with its prices immediately.

Because Time Warner is the default internet provider for many New Yorkers, city and state business regulators had to approve the company's merger with Charter — which they did at the beginning of 2016, on condition that broadband speeds would be increased, service to low-income communities would be expanded and customer service would be improved. Patch has contacted the New York State Public Service Commission for an update on how things have been going on that front; we'll update if and when we hear back.

"This is an interesting thing," Schneiderman said Wednesday. "Part of what they took advantage of is that each of us, when we experience slowness or we experience problems with our internet, we tend to think, 'Maybe it's just me. It's my router.' ... Not knowing that everyone else in my subscriber group was going through the exact same thing at the same time. So they use the fact that we're all fragmented in our use of the internet."

"It was an ongoing, conscious plan of deception at the corporate level," he said.

Lead photo by Mike Mozart/Flickr. Graphics courtesy of the Attorney General's Office