Why it matters to you
Time Warner was long accused of under delivering on its Wi-Fi speeds and its new parent company has inherited many of the same problems.
You can change names, but apparently, you can’t change problems. If you’re a New Yorker unhappy with the internet service provided by Charter Communications (which bought Time Warner Cable, rebranding the company as Spectrum), know that you’re not alone. Far from it, in fact. On Wednesday, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a lawsuit accusing Spectrum of under-delivering when it comes to internet speeds for its customers.
According to a Reuters report, the lawsuit claims that Spectrum “systematically defrauding and misleading internet service subscribers by promising service it knew it could not deliver.” The case, which has been filed in the State Supreme Court in Manhattan, has been quite a long time coming — Schneiderman first began its probe into the slow speeds back in October.
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Considering that services affected by the slow speeds were crowd pleasers like Netflix, Facebook, and gaming platforms, it’s no wonder that consumers and officials alike are none too pleased about Spectrum’s services. In fact, Schneiderman noted at a news conference that Spectrum’s Wi-Fi speeds were a full 80 percent slower than advertised. Speed test results suggested that 300Mbps plans were only delivering speeds of 85Mbps.
“Reliable internet service is not a luxury, it is a necessity,” said Schneiderman. The attorney also drew attention to an internal email in which Spectrum engineers noted that their modems were incapable of supporting speeds as advertised, but made no changes to their practices.
For its part, Charter has said that it is “disappointed” by the lawsuit because many of the accusations took place before the company acquired Time Warner. “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 said. It looks like the company is inheriting some problems it hadn’t bargained for.