New York Attorney General Probes ISPs For Delivering Lower Than Advertised Broadband Speeds
People living in New York may not be getting the broadband speeds they're paying for. To find out, New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman has sent out letters to three different Internet Service Providers requesting disclosures each one has made to consumers, along with copies of any internal tests they've run to study their speeds.
"New Yorkers deserve the Internet speeds they pay for. But, as it turns out, many of us may be paying for one thing, and getting another," Schneiderman said in a statement.
Schneiderman is concentrating his efforts on three ISPs at the moment. They include Verizon Communications Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp, and Time Warner Cable Inc., according to Reuters, which claims to have seen documents related to the investigation.
Out of the three, only Verizon declined to comment, claiming it hasn't seen the letter yet. TWC acknowledged the investigation saying that it's confident customers are receiving the speeds they pay for and that it's "look[ing] forward to working with the AG to resolve this matter," while Cablevision says its Optimum Online service "consistently surpasses advertised broadband speeds."
The probe is largely centered around interconnection deals that ISPs make with other networks for the mutual exchange of data. Schneiderman brought up concerns in his letters that technical problems and business disputes over these deals might be adversely affecting customers who pay extra for higher speeds.
"Internet service provider interconnection has a substantial impact on consumer Internet performance - sometimes a severely negative impact," the Measurement Lab Consortium stated in a study last year. The study also said that issues are more often related to business relationships than technical problems.
"New Yorkers deserve the Internet speeds they pay for. But, as it turns out, many of us may be paying for one thing, and getting another," Schneiderman said in a statement.
Schneiderman is concentrating his efforts on three ISPs at the moment. They include Verizon Communications Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp, and Time Warner Cable Inc., according to Reuters, which claims to have seen documents related to the investigation.
Out of the three, only Verizon declined to comment, claiming it hasn't seen the letter yet. TWC acknowledged the investigation saying that it's confident customers are receiving the speeds they pay for and that it's "look[ing] forward to working with the AG to resolve this matter," while Cablevision says its Optimum Online service "consistently surpasses advertised broadband speeds."
The probe is largely centered around interconnection deals that ISPs make with other networks for the mutual exchange of data. Schneiderman brought up concerns in his letters that technical problems and business disputes over these deals might be adversely affecting customers who pay extra for higher speeds.
"Internet service provider interconnection has a substantial impact on consumer Internet performance - sometimes a severely negative impact," the Measurement Lab Consortium stated in a study last year. The study also said that issues are more often related to business relationships than technical problems.
