Connecticut AG Sues Cable Giant Altice For Selling Broadband Speeds It Can’t Deliver
from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept
With federal telecom oversight both intentionally gridlocked and crippled courtesy of the Trump era, the closest telecom monopolies get to seeing accountability are often state attorneys general.
Case in point: telecom giants routinely sell service speeds that they can’t actually deliver across all fifty states. But only in a handful of states where AGs actually care about broadband consumers getting ripped off do you see any meaningful action. Such as last week in Connecticut, where state AG William Tong stated he’d be launching an investigation into cable giant Altice, which sells service under the Optimum Brand.
According to Tong, Altice/Optimum routinely sells broadband service tier speeds its network often can’t actually deliver:
“Our office has reviewed hundreds of complaints from Optimum cable internet customers regarding slow speeds, hidden fees, and poor customer support. Our investigation seeks comprehensive records dating back to January 2017 to determine exactly what Altice Optimum knew and what they were doing to deliver the internet speeds and service they promised. If our investigation finds that Optimum violated Connecticut law, we will not hesitate to hold them accountable,”
France-based Altice bought Optimum several years ago promising to be significantly better than Optimum. Instead the company’s owners found that limited competition and limited regulatory oversight lets you abuse customers usually without meaningful penalty.
CT’s AG is also investigating Altice for another common tactic in the broadband industry: socking you with bullshit, below the line fees to jack up your advertised rate. The company’s monthly $3.50 “Network Enhancement Fee,” basically allows the company to break out a cost of providing service and hide it below the line, effectively letting it falsely advertise a lower rate.
For every Connecticut AG who actually cares about this stuff (though even here, this will likely end with a wrist slap at best), there’s two or three states that simply couldn’t care less that U.S. broadband subscribers are getting ripped off. With neither regulatory or competitive pressure to hold big ISPs accountable, they can pretty much do whatever they’d like.
And what they’d like is to overcharge you for substandard service far slower and far more expensive than the actual, advertised price. With the entirety of DC and press policy attention fixated exclusively on Big Tech, it’s a great time to be a predatory telecom monopoly, since the very worst threat you face is a flimsy, occasional fine from a state AG.
Filed Under: attorney general, broadband, cable, connecticut, consumer protection, hidden fees, high speed internet, telecom, truth in advertising
Companies: altice, optimum
Comments on “Connecticut AG Sues Cable Giant Altice For Selling Broadband Speeds It Can’t Deliver”
In other news...
Altice will be replacing their lobbyists ASAP, to insure their speeds are acceptable.
I live in Connecticut and have Altice/Optimum/Cablevision. I won’t say the company was perfect as they had their share of problems over the years, but when the company was owned by Cablevision, the service was reliable, the speeds were good, if you called customer service, you spoke to someone in America, and their first action if you had any kind of problem was to send a technician to your home, for which we NEVER had to pay.
Now that Altice owns the company, it randomly goes down for at least a few minutes, sometimes an hour or two, at least every couple of months. I get about 3/4 of my listed speed. When you call customer service, you get connected to a call center in India, who have no power to bargain on your bill or actually trouble shoot problems. Oh, and if they need to send a technician out, they warn you that it could end up costing you $80+ if they don’t find a verifiable problem at the pole.
I have a friend in Canada who I talk to on a regular basis (no long distance charges to call Canada). A year or two ago, I dialed her number and got a recording that said (as best I can remember), “As of xx/xx/xxxx, calling cards are no longer accepted for international calls.” Cell phones could call her number, people on other providers could call her number, but anyone with Altice/Optimum got that message. When I called customer service, they claimed that there was no problem and that my service was working normally. I asked them to try calling the number themselves and was told that they didn’t have access to an American phone line.
More recently, like 3-4 months ago, a new problem started. Whenever I’d dial her number, I’d either get a busy signal, or a circuits are busy signal (like a fast busy signal). I’d have to dial it up to 20-30 times in a row before it would go through, and she’d confirm that she wasn’t on the phone. Same run-around from Altice. It finally went away on its own about a month ago.
A friend up the road called them to do something about his perpetually rising bill. They offered him a deal, he took it and they scheduled a sate and time to install the new service. His existing setup was working fine, but as this was their “premium” service, they wanted to install all-new equipment. Then they called him up to say that it had been a mistake to offer him that deal as it was for new customers only. He raised hell and they agreed to give it to him. They came, did the installation, and he had nothing but problems with it. They came out a few times, but couldn’t fix it. He finally complained to the local Better Business Bureau, and shortly after, they came out and fixed it.
When I called up to try and do something about my bill, the guy I spoke to suggested that I return my set-top boxes to save the rental fee on them. Many years ago, Cablevision went to an all-digital system that no longer worked on cable-ready TVs, so you absolutely needed a box to watch anything. As far as I know, that’s still the case, especially as the boxes all have an authorization card inserted in them. So basically he was suggesting that I save money by sacrificing my ability to watch the TV service that I pay for. Not that I watch it myself, the people I rent the downstairs to watch and pay for it.
Welcome to Techdirt.
While there have not been a huge number of articles about Altice specifically, broadband monopolies and telecom misbehavior are frequent topics here.
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