Charter Kicked Out Of New York Over Inadequate Spectrum Internet Deployments And Willful Obfuscation
Apparently, Charter has still failed to live up to its obligations because the Commission announced today they that it revoked its preliminary approval of the merger between Charter and Time Warner Cable in the state. This means that the company can no longer operate in the state and in essence forfeits future revenue from roughly 2 million subscribers.
In its findings, the Commission reports:
- The company’s repeated failures to meet deadlines
- Charter’s attempts to skirt obligations to serve rural communities
- Unsafe practices in the field
- Its failure to fully commit to its obligations under the 2016 merger agreement
- The company’s purposeful obfuscation of its performance and compliance obligations to the Commission and its customers
The Commission went on to add that because of Charter's repeated failures to meet deployment guidelines and its continued efforts to mislead regulators, it could "no longer in good faith and conscience allow it to operate in New York".
Charter missed a number of milestones including its promise to deliver statewide broadband speeds of 100Mbps by the end of 2018 and was nowhere close to being able to deliver 300Mbps speeds by 2019. It also failed to expand its footprint to cover 145,000 underserved businesses and homes. As we reported in our previous article, Charter attempted to fudge the numbers to make its deployments appear greater than they really were.
"Its failure to meet its June 18, 2018 target by more than 40 percent is only the most recent example." the Commission adds.
In addition to be kicked out of the state, the Commission is asking for a total of $3 million in penalties for missing previous milestones. New York is giving Charter a 60-day grace period to continue operating in the state to provide service to customers, and during the time it must aid in helping to find a replacement service provider and to help ease the transition process.
