new york

Verizon threatens to end NYC FiOS service over lawsuit

17 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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New York City is suing Verizon for failing to build out fiber to the home service to all residences as promised and Verizon might retaliate by yanking out television service citywide. And stroppy landlords are making it a three-cornered fight.

Like any legal dispute that’s measured in billions of dollars, it’s a complicated affair. But one of the central issues is Verizon’s problems with getting access to apartment buildings and condos – multi-dwelling units (MDUs).… More

Charter is ripping off Internet subscribers, says NY attorney general

4 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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Time Warner Cable executives deliberately under provisioned and over promised Internet service to its subscribers in the State of New York and Charter Communications is allowing the practice to continue, claims New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman in a lawsuit filed earlier this week. It’s a follow on to an investigation kicked off in 2015.

Charter purchased TWC in May 2016. It took over operation of systems and customer equipment that couldn’t delivered speeds that were advertised or that customers purchased and “even now, [Charter] continues to offer Internet speeds that we found they cannot reliably deliver”, Schneiderman alleges.… More

Unexpected U-turn as FCC lets New York manage broadband subsidy money

30 January 2017 by Steve Blum
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By Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York (IMG_4305_4) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
The new federalism.

Who would have thought that the Federal Communications Commission’s first significant decision of the Trump era would be to take money originally designated for its no-incumbent-left-behind broadband subsidy program – Connect America Fund 2 (CAF-2) – and use it to top up reasonably competitive state grants, with the state calling the shots?

But that’s exactly what happened.

In 2015, Verizon turned down the CAF-2 money on offer in its wireline territory, except for the systems that it was selling to Frontier Communications, which did want it.… More

New York orders Charter to upgrade analog to digital

12 January 2016 by Steve Blum
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The New York state public service commission approved Charter Communications’ purchase of Time Warner cable systems, but added a list of conditions that included digital upgrades and speed increases. According to the decision, Charter…

…must convert their existing New York footprint to an all-digital network (including upgrading the Columbia County Charter cable systems to enable broadband communications) capable of delivering faster broadband speeds. The Petitioners will be required to offer all customers broadband speeds of up to 100 Mbps by the end of 2018 and 300 Mbps by the end of 2019.

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New York attorney general says ISP speed matters more than disclaimers

27 October 2015 by Steve Blum
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It’s gotta at least be in the ballpark.

The New York attorney general wants Time Warner, Cablevision and Verizon to explain how they manage they manage the Internet connections that they sell to consumers, and how they do business among themselves and with other telecommunications companies. Letters sent to the three companies point to the disconnect between what’s advertised, what’s sold and what’s actually delivered.

The letter sent to Time Warner Cable is typical (links to the others are below)…

This Office is concerned that, for reasons substantially within TWC’s control, consumers may not be experiencing the speeds advertised.

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