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New York Sues Charter Over Slow Internet Speeds (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: New York filed a lawsuit on Wednesday accusing Charter Communications Inc of short-changing customers who were promised faster internet speeds than it could deliver. The lawsuit in State Supreme Court in Manhattan accused Charter's Spectrum unit, until recently known as Time Warner Cable, of systematically defrauding customers since 2012 by promising and charging for services it knew it could not offer. At least 640,000 subscribers signed up for high-speed plans but got slower speeds, and many subscribers were unable to access promised online content such as Facebook, Netflix, YouTube and various gaming platforms, the complaint said. The lawsuit seeks "full restitution" for customers, as well as hefty civil fines. Among the allegations in the complaint was an accusation that Time Warner Cable leased older-generation modems to 900,000 subscribers knowing that the modems could not achieve faster internet speeds.
I would love to see them nailed hard for this, prompting cities in their little mini-monopolies to follow suit all across the country. They won't, bribes will be paid and it will go away. But man, wouldn't it be sweet if it did happen.
I want to see those scammers, thieves and traitors hung! ... wait. what do you mean "everything's okay now"?
What's that big bag with a dollar sign on it? Where are you going?
We're nerds. Lets summarize like it:
Charter customers with 100+Mbps plans were leased old-spec modems that couldn't support those speeds. Charter promised the FCC that it would swap the modems, and the FCC excluded speedtest results from these users from national averages. Fast forward: Charter didn't switch the modems. Now NY State is suing it for defrauding customers.
let Charter handle the leftovers.
is how they've advertised for years. not since the earlier days of charter "pipeline" or time warner "roadrunner" (their previous brandings of high speed internet) have either company used 'unlimited'; and i dont recall any advertising (back then or now) that hasn't included "up to" or a significant disclaimer regarding speeds.
yes, charter sucks donkey ass and time warner sucks cock for bus money then walks home... but as misleading as their promos are -- they're barely on the side being legal.
what they need to do is dump term agreements and bundles and start putting "regular prices" back on their web sites, marketing materials and rate sheets.. next to the too-low-to-believe advertised 'special' prices.
Yes, can agree. Mod parent up.
P.S. Also, did you get the raise in shill money they promised us? Because I didn't.
You did this to your self. Community internet was BANNED by your corrupt city in favor of these scumbag companies.
This kind of scumbag bullshit has been going on in cities by so called leaders for years because you prefer to get your palms greased by the big cable companies.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
And prepare to wait for a lo-o-ong time . . .
And this ^^^^ is why no one takes liberals seriously.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
When I originally moved into my house in 2011, we had charter and it was terrible.
I live at the edge of the earth, so I gladly jumped at 12mbps internet over the 5mbps that Verizon was offering with DSL. Sadly it only went 2-3mbps when the ping wasn't >1000ms.
Fast forward to today, they offer 60mbps in my area, I give a shot again, and this time it actually works great, without any hitches.
I'm not sure what they fixed in my area, but I'm glad they did.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
He did say he don't think they will prevail...
So sorry to inform you, you just went off pre-maturely. If that happens too often you should see a doctor. There's good help theses days for the condition.
Am I allowed to defend a big company on Slashdot and not be accused of being a shill?
Charter is easily the best ISP, at least in my area (and from what I've heard, it is in many places). They're the only ones that actually gives you the advertised speeds. They guarantee 60Mbps over wired connections, not wireless, but wireless is usually damn near as good with a quality router. My guess with New York is that some of the modems they gave to customers weren't up to the latest DOCSIS specs.
Also, the wording of the article is odd. To paraphrase, it basically at one point says customers couldn't use sites like Facebook. I don't get that. Just because speeds are slow doesn't mean you flat out can't access websites. It's just suspicious wording.
I had AT&T for a little while and it sucked ass. Pay for 40Mpbs? Oh okay, here's 20 on a good day. And it was only just slightly cheaper. What are the alternatives? We all know Comcast is dog shit. I've been very happy with Charter, and it only keeps getting faster.
Frontier DSL took over in WV back in 2010 when Verizon bailed on the state after years of neglecting their infrastructure. Their base plan at the time was a 3mbps plan at $65/mo, which when I was on it I was lucky to get 1.5mpbs. Usually I got between 512-768kbps. They "upgraded" the plan to 6mbps at some point, but I never saw any actual performance increase. I wasn't the only one either, because in 2014 West Virginia threatened to sue Frontier for failing to deliver anywhere near their advertised rates. Of course, Frontier settled out of court, rates for customers that weren't getting anywhere near their advertised speeds got reduced to $10/mo, and Frontier "promised" to invest $150million into fixing their infrastructure over the next 3 years.
Six months after that rate decrease went into effect I was getting less than 128kbps, and at times I was speed testing at less than 56k. The internet became almost unusable, and using my phone for 3G service was preferable to using the land line. To no one's surprise, that was also when Time Warner decided that they actually did service my house when for 6 years they'd told me that they didn't even though my house had Time Warner with its previous owner and my neighbor still had them. So I switched, and now I'm on a 25mbps pan for $45/mo, and it actually delivers consistently.
Of course, this isn't the only trouble Frontier ran into in our state. They were also investigated for misuse of federal and state funds that were supposed to be going towards expanding their network but didn't.
To clarify, AC here is talking about the UK. And it's true: it's standard to get a modem for free with any broadband package. In fact, it's hard not to get one: some providers require that you use their equipment.
I wonder how much of this can be blamed on Buffer Bloat?
slashdot: A failed experiment.
Comcast....
25 mbps - Can't stream Netflix in 3D.
Drop plan to 3 mbps, next week Netflix pays Comcast. Suddenly, the very next day my 3 mbps connection is adequate to stream 3D content.
The thing is, I paid Comcast for 25 mbps service. I was not getting it. They manipulate the speeds. And it goes beyond the disclaimer that said speeds may not always be available. We understand outages, slowdowns, peak periods, etc. But when they are NEVER available. But you can turn around and hit a popular speed test site and Comcast with show you 25 - 50 mbps.
The modems are merely an excuse.
Comcast in Houston makes using their box mandatory if you have a fixed IP. They told me I could use my own box, advertise that on the website and only mentioned the restriction once I wanted to install the replacement (picked from their recommended list!).
Yes, definitely. It's pretty annoying: I'd rather have a £40 discount than yet another modem-router.