New York to Kick Spectrum Cable Out of State for 'Failures to Serve New Yorkers'

That is nice, but that is not going to happen in Buffalo, NY area. So, who is going to take over here?

Yeah but Atlanta is a top tier premium market for Comcast but they stuff us with 1tb data cap a month.
 
Meaning, I have my Verizon Fios, screw those who cannot get it and only have Spectrum as an option. Yeah, that will show them...….. :rolleyes:

Unless "screw those" have the unfortunate given name of Charter Spectrum, then my post has absolutely zero to do with those people in New York. It *only* mentioned Charter Spectrum. And to that end, fuck Charter Spectrum with King Kong's hairy dick while Godzilla teabags them.
 
Why can't they have more than one provider?

And this is the real solution, but this being New York, it will never happen.

They need to open this up to multiple service providers. Let Spectrum stay, and invite one or 2 more providers to come in.
 
Hi All

I guess it depends on where in New York you live. Here on Long Island we have Cablevision/ Altice as well as Verizon/Fios. As soon as Fios became available I dropped at the time Cablevision. They hadn't been purchased by Altice . So it's possible to have more than one service provider in your area.
 
At least YOU GOT 100/10!!

Where my parents are at, Spectrum won't finish building out the 1000 fucking feet of additional cable to provide TV and Internet to their place. They wanted to charge my parents $2500 for the 1000 foot buildout!! My parents are left with NOTHING available other than shitty and expensive Satellite Internet!



It is ridiculously expensive do do that kind of build out for ONE house serviced. That account will make what like 20ish a month in profits for the Cable Company? That kind of plant extension can be easily 10k to build so the ROI on that is a no go. Thats why they ask to share the cost. It can be even more if you have poles that need set or any zoning or other hoops to jump through. Where I live the next community over is full of large estates and a lot of wooded areas that are protected. At some point in the last 30 years each of those homes has paid out of their own pocket to run plant extensions from the main road to the residence. Usually about 6-10K per house . One guy told me 14!

It sucks living that close to the nearest hookup and not being able to get service. I get it but they aren't build out for a loss.


On topic:

I wonder how the hell this will turn out? What Charter just says. OK and pulls the plug on everyone there. Surely they won't because the fallout across the country would be terrible for business. If it opens up some competition there maybe it will be for the best.
 
You mean pay the piper, as in punish the customer like myself?

Yeah! After all, Verizon's spent YEARS not meeting *their* obligations, either. We should forget about making them do what they said they'd do, and just raise your rates instead, so they can make even more money.
 
If only the rest of the country would actually hold cable companies accountable for their (lack of) service...
 
What part of fascism does this not meet the criteria? They are a private company and are not beholden to the government to meet delivery demands. Another cable company should just come in and steal all thebusiness. .

Sorry, tangoseal, but your statement is incorrect. Cable companies like Charter make deals with municipalities like New York where they agree to provide certain services (e.g., broadband, cable rural internet, Gig Fiber etc..') at a certain SLA (service level agreement). In return, the cable company gets the right to sell their products with limited competition to all or part of that geographical area and receive various tax incentives.

Cable companies, like any other business, need to be held accountable by city governments and individuals just like any other company. The question is, however, did Charter indeed hold up their end of the bargain?
 
Hi All

I guess it depends on where in New York you live. Here on Long Island we have Cablevision/ Altice as well as Verizon/Fios. As soon as Fios became available I dropped at the time Cablevision. They hadn't been purchased by Altice . So it's possible to have more than one service provider in your area.

NY is fairly competitive depending where you are. Most places have access to at least two of Cablevision, Verizon, or TWC. I'm actually one of the few who only has one option, since we're buried (Brookhaven) so Verizon decided to not bother expanding FIOS to our area. But Cablevision tends to be pretty damn good all things considered.

That being said, Europe does it better. They have the government build the connection, and leave the service up to the ISPs. Since the government owns the hardware, ISPs are forced to focus on bringing good service.
 
Sorry, tangoseal, but your statement is incorrect. Cable companies like Charter make deals with municipalities like New York where they agree to provide certain services (e.g., broadband, cable rural internet, Gig Fiber etc..') at a certain SLA (service level agreement). In return, the cable company gets the right to sell their products with limited competition to all or part of that geographical area and receive various tax incentives.

Cable companies, like any other business, need to be held accountable by city governments and individuals just like any other company. The question is, however, did Charter indeed hold up their end of the bargain?

Pretty much this. Hell, most corporations need to get explicit approval from states/municipalities in order to do business. In theory any state can prevent any corporation from doing business within that state unless certain requirements are met. This is VERY rarely done though, because Jobs and Taxes.
 
Here in Redmond, WA (and surrounding areas) Verizon sold their FiOS and landline to Frontier. Frontier halted the build-out even though the sale was gated on completing the fiber deployment. They decided shitty DSL met the terms of the contract and the ass-kissing idiots in the various local governments did nothing. Service here tops out at 150/150. Which is fine, but they've done zilch to grow it. Meanwhile in other markets they're deploying gig/gig.

At least the NY regulators are holding the shitty ISPs somewhat accountable in terms of meeting their franchise contract agreements.

Oh, and Poli-Sci pro-tip: a government holding a private company accountable for contractual obligations is not "fascism." :rolleyes:
 
At least YOU GOT 100/10!!

Where my parents are at, Spectrum won't finish building out the 1000 fucking feet of additional cable to provide TV and Internet to their place. They wanted to charge my parents $2500 for the 1000 foot buildout!! My parents are left with NOTHING available other than shitty and expensive Satellite Internet!
You do realize that those speeds are for countries that do not have the attitude of the free market will prevail a decade old at least..
America has a problem that people follow the mantra of the "free market" are just in love with some silly thing indoctrinated at a young age. While in reality you need government to protect your rights and make sure that these companies are doing their job ( I mean they get paid for it).
Someone? Who? There is no one else around here.
You look at it from a physical point. But look at it from a piece of paper point of view. Someone will bid on the contract and they would be obliged when accepting the contract to abide by previous arrangements and so on and so forth.

Your state prolly has legislation to oversee this whole process.
 
It is ridiculously expensive do do that kind of build out for ONE house serviced. That account will make what like 20ish a month in profits for the Cable Company? That kind of plant extension can be easily 10k to build so the ROI on that is a no go. Thats why they ask to share the cost. It can be even more if you have poles that need set or any zoning or other hoops to jump through. Where I live the next community over is full of large estates and a lot of wooded areas that are protected. At some point in the last 30 years each of those homes has paid out of their own pocket to run plant extensions from the main road to the residence. Usually about 6-10K per house . One guy told me 14!

Thing is we are talking about utilities now not just TV service. If it weren't for the fact that Verizon has totally abandoned copper service this wouldn't be much of an issue. When their copper lines shit the bed (and yes... Eventually they will) then what?
 
Now if only AT&T will get off their asses in my area and start serving up some fiber in my diet. The fastest I can get is 100 Mbps from AT&T, yes... I could go to Spectrum but I hate them more than AT&T, if that was even possible.
 
When spectrum took over my bill went sky high in NYC. Paying over 200 a month for 100/10 internet and basic cable. No other options in this building. I will be happy to see someone else take over.
 
unlike comcast they just paid off the wrong polititions.
All of this BS in america is about money and nothing else.
Did you see how much money was paid when the senate looked at repeal of the the fcc ruling.
last count was 111 million dollars in donations.....donations, funny word for bribery but it covers it up.
 
Who again, WHO? As usual you all no answers but hey, what do you all care, right? Read the post, not you bent.
I can only speculate, as I'm not one of the companies bidding for this contract, but there is Altice (Optimum/Cablevision) that is in NY State. They could gobble up the contract if they were inclined. They're a decent (not great, not bad) company with respects to their Internet Service. I have them for my residential, and they provide our business data circuit as well. My home speeds are 200/35 for $75/month. We pay almost 3 times that for our business circuit (same speeds), but we also get 2hr support times if the circuit fails and they need to come to the premise. This is in the Hudson Valley Region too, not NYC or Westchester County.
 
When spectrum took over my bill went sky high in NYC. Paying over 200 a month for 100/10 internet and basic cable. No other options in this building. I will be happy to see someone else take over.
That sucks. I live in rural East Texas and pay $50 for 150/5 with gigabit available for $135 with a 1.2TB data cap, which is more than enough for me. Smaller company -- Cableone.
 
This is just legal bluster to get Charter to act.

NY doesn’t really want to kick Charter out, they want them to fulfill their promises.

This entire thing is just so that it does go to court and NY can get Charter to act and possibly extract additional concessions
 
What part of fascism does this not meet the criteria? They are a private company and are not beholden to the government to meet delivery demands. Another cable company should just come in and steal all thebusiness. .

Because cable providers are a limited monopoly.

And, yes, they ARE beholden to the government. Because they are given immunity to "right of way" so they can install their network. Additionally, they had a contractual agreement with the state to achieve certain levels of service in the state as a condition of several of the mergers that've taken place.

They failed to meet that and apparently have no intention of actually doing so.

NY finally put their foot down.
 
Why can't they have more than one provider?

Because a cable network really isn't set up to be a shared resource.

COULD another provider come in? Sure. But they'd have to build out their own network, and wouldn't have the same access to rights of way that the incumbent does.

That, right there, pretty much screws them.
 
WTH?????? I cannot get Verizon Fios and the only option other than Spectrum Internet is DSL!!!!! What the Hell! I pay $65 a month for 100Mb / 10Mb connection and I want to keep it. New York needs to GTHO of this stuff!

Your service shouldn't change. Merely that the local provider, eventually, will.
 
Be careful what you wish for. Comcast is worse and they'd be the likely contender to take over New York from Spectrum if the appeals fail.
 
Because a cable network really isn't set up to be a shared resource.

COULD another provider come in? Sure. But they'd have to build out their own network, and wouldn't have the same access to rights of way that the incumbent does.

That, right there, pretty much screws them.

Mmm. I think there is often massive build-out to begin with, then those facilities are leased to other operators. I'm sure there are situations that a new market entrant would have to actually build a new infrastructure but that would be, generally, in places not already served.
 
Mmm. I think there is often massive build-out to begin with, then those facilities are leased to other operators. I'm sure there are situations that a new market entrant would have to actually build a new infrastructure but that would be, generally, in places not already served.

You can't really lease coax. They could share the fiber infrastructure up to the point where the node converts it to coax (possibly, a lot of times the fiber goes straight back to their headend, which for spectrum means New York, even if you live in Maine, making it useless for competitors), but having multiple different carriers over a single coax line would be a nightmare.

This is why we need open access fiber networks. You can have as many carriers as you want over a single strand of fiber.
 
Because cable providers are a limited monopoly.

And, yes, they ARE beholden to the government. Because they are given immunity to "right of way" so they can install their network. Additionally, they had a contractual agreement with the state to achieve certain levels of service in the state as a condition of several of the mergers that've taken place.

They failed to meet that and apparently have no intention of actually doing so.

NY finally put their foot down.

They didn't have a contractual obligation with the state for anything regarding the merger. The state had nothing to do with the merger.
 
You can't really lease coax. They could share the fiber infrastructure up to the point where the node converts it to coax (possibly, a lot of times the fiber goes straight back to their headend, which for spectrum means New York, even if you live in Maine, making it useless for competitors), but having multiple different carriers over a single coax line would be a nightmare.

This is why we need open access fiber networks. You can have as many carriers as you want over a single strand of fiber.
I agree with everything you've said. My point was that new competitors do not run wholly new infrastructure. In reference to the post I quoted, which suggested that very thing.
 
Sounds good right? Holding a isp accountable for the promises they make? Well who all offers service in that area? Spectrum/charter att im sure but who else? See the problem here? Typically in any city or service area you have 2 choices maybe 3 at best for isp. Spectrum/charter has no caps etc att does. Att charges more money for internet and gives less for the money. With spectrum gone att will have free run to charge what ever they want for internet and impose any caps they like and the customer will have no choice but to use att or nothing at all. This does not mean spectrum shuld not be hit for this but it may be a case of it needing to be looked at long and hard. ATT in the past has worked hard to make sure they can kill competitors as has most major isps. Getting laws and ords in place making it impossible for muni isps and other startups to get ging at all. In some cases making it out right illegal for some one to even try. As for the fcc they have never done nothing to combat any thing. They love to pay lip service to real problems. Every one freaked out when NN was done away with but fact is it cost more to run it than it ever dished out in fines. No one can tell me that money was not spent on investigating enforcement etc of NN and other things related to admin work. You can bet it was way way more than the couple 100 million in fines that were handed out to companies that if they were not penny pinching would never even notice 3x that amount.

Any time a is tv provider etc has been slapped with a fine in the past they always add or raise a hidden fee to recover that fine. Some get pretty bold about the naming of the "fee" such as mandatory fcc recovery fee"
NN could have been great it could prevent lots of stuff but with companies able to recover those fines in the form of fees on their bills it was worse than not having it.

Before during and after NN nothing has changed when it comes to the internet in general before it isps did dirty stuff during it they did dirty stuff after it they do dirty stuff. Now take old NN add in wording that prevents a isp from raising their bill for x years and hit them with a billion in fines and see what happens. Make that fine hurt make the board of directors feel the hit and see how fast a is stops their crap. Again though on topic watch out those in the effected area you will end up with no choice for internet but very expensive and capped service that is slower than spectrum.
 
Mmm. I think there is often massive build-out to begin with, then those facilities are leased to other operators. I'm sure there are situations that a new market entrant would have to actually build a new infrastructure but that would be, generally, in places not already served.

Again, usually not without violating pre-existing agreements with municipalities for rights of way.
 
They didn't have a contractual obligation with the state for anything regarding the merger. The state had nothing to do with the merger.

Wrong. The state set terms during the merger with TWC. Some of these terms include increasing service to rural areas and several deadlines.
 
Again, usually not without violating pre-existing agreements with municipalities for rights of way.

It varies by state. In my state, I think the most a municipality could do is charge a franchise fee. All this other regulatory power is actually statutorily forbidden.

I suppose it varies by state - a lot.
 
I rather have charter then comcast! Comcast is EVIL. I live in upstate NY.

No you wouldn't. I have Charter. They suck too. My bill just went up 20 bucks. I called them and was told there was nothing they could do about it, I even explained to them that I've been a customer of theirs for 15 years, still nothing. Screw Charter & all of em, they're all the same.
 
Most local areas are NOT free market for ISPs. Local government grants ROW monopoly to given ISPs who give kick backs to local government, like free phone/internet/TV service to public buildings etc as well as others, often times local government will refuse anyone else to lay cable. Funny enough one of the biggest reasons government pushed to control and regulate the ROW's is because they claimed a single company could buy up all the land and refuse to let other ISP's install cable....Funny how that works huh?

No, most local governments don't get free service. Most would love it if they did, but they don't. We had one city try to get us to give them free service because we signed up to be the operator of the newly built municipal fiber network. We had a good laugh then told them no, they are paying rack rates just like anyone else. We service a few county seats, police stations another government locations. They pay us just like anyone else. Well.. at least like any bad customer given that they don't always send their checks out on the due date but instead make up their own due dates based on whatever date that city meets to approve spending. But we don't give free service to a single government entity. If anything they are our highest paying customers due to the amount of stuff they pay for.

I have never heard or seen the term ROW so no idea what you are trying to reference there.

At least YOU GOT 100/10!!

Where my parents are at, Spectrum won't finish building out the 1000 fucking feet of additional cable to provide TV and Internet to their place. They wanted to charge my parents $2500 for the 1000 foot buildout!! My parents are left with NOTHING available other than shitty and expensive Satellite Internet!

The problem there is the return on the investment. We actually had a similar case at work last week. We would have to built out 2500 feet to get to a person that wants our service. If we don't charge anything to install the drop, then we will never get our money back from the person so in the end it doesn't help us to get the person service. While we would like to be nice, we need to make money to stay in business. Same there in regards to your parent's. As much as something like that sucks, a for profit business does need to look at every case and decide based on what is in their best interest not what makes them feel warm and fuzzy. That $2500 charge is actually not going to fully cover the cost of running that and they are still going to be out a few years before they break even. If I had free reign to build out where I wanted we would be putting fiber all over the place, but I also would be causing us to bleed millions a year by making choices that I think would be nice to get to but would cost us a shit ton of money with no real logical way to have a return on the investment in less than 100 years. Now all that said, the larger the company the more they can afford to do a few one off longer drops or stuff like that vs the smaller guys. Especially when they promise a state that they would do just that.

That is nice, but that is not going to happen in Buffalo, NY area. So, who is going to take over here?

Somebody will bid. Could be comcast, could be Mediacom, could be various smaller cable companies taking small areas here and there. Could even be smaller telephone companies that already service some areas that take over the rural areas and then the larger areas get taken over by larger cable companies. In the end somebody is going to want all the regions. Last year a small cable company near me went up for sale, only serviced around 3000 houses. They had 6 bids on the table for the company. Two of which were Comcast and Mediacom. In the end my work (small rural ISP) purchased the company. All over the place telephone companies are buying up smaller cable companies or merging with them if both are co-ops. So I wouldn't see it being that hard for them to sell off all the regions through the state to somebody. There actually is a cable tv convention that starts tomorrow and goes through Wednesday. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't talk about this there and people discussing how they would like to take on various regions.
 
I rather have charter then comcast! Comcast is EVIL. I live in upstate NY.

I also live in Upstate and it's been a miracle since Spectrum came in. I went from 50/5 to 300/50 same price, 99.99% uptime. I'll be upset if I lose out on this goodness, but I understand the pain they have inflicted others and a good slap across the face is warrented.
 
this smells of politics and some folks running for re-election are showing off for the expense of votes.
Spectrum isn't showing what it has up its sleeve to anyone until they are in a court room of its choosing. And when it dose I can also most be 100% positive Spectrum (former TWC) has enough data to show they made every effort possible to meet and exceed the requirements but the state, local city and counties or other governing agencies delayed or stymied their efforts to build out with unreasonable request after the agreement - permitting delays. Spectrum would also show how they should not be held accountable for customer induced issues like bad home wiring or wifi not being able to penetrate building materials. Spectrum will also show how NYC interfered in the ongoing labor issues with the workers union and may have contributed to the network sabotage that was occurring. Spectrum (former TWC) has plenty of back pocket data and a war chest for it legal team to work with to keep this in the courts for a bit and win better terms or void them out all together. looking at the 3 main terms that both aggreged to
"On Jan. 8, 2016, the Commission approved Charter’s acquisition of Time Warner. To obtain approval, Charter agreed to a number of conditions required by the Commission to advance the public interest, including delivering broadband speed upgrades to 100 Mbps statewide by the end of 2018, and 300 Mbps by the end of 2019, and building out its network to pass an additional 145,000 un-served or under-served homes and businesses in the State's less densely populated areas within four years of the closing of the transaction." All but 2 of the 3 items in Spectrums eyes and the courts are met - most TWC areas prior to the merger were at min 100 Mps ready or running at 300 Mbps Road Runner Lightning service and Spectrum can argue 2018 isn't over yet for them to provide the 100 Mps to the old Charter systems or the upgraded 300 Mps .
Heck 60 days to transition each headend system to another provider is unreasonable at best - the number of subsystems from the likes of customer billing to retransmission agreements all need to be settled to avoid customer impacts.
 
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You seem to have had the exact opposite experience I had with the changeover from TWC to Spectrum. My prices went up, speed never changed, and down time has gone up by about dramatically. Under TWC I might have an outage for an hour or two once a year, with Spectrum it's every other month for the better part of a day.

The state of ISP's in the US is pretty pathetic, seems no matter who you choose, you get raped.


I went from paying 100/mo plus modem rental and taxes for 60Mb to 44/mo including taxes for 100Mb. Latency, packet loss, jitter, etc... All gone. I couldn't be happier, and it's been about a year now. Only other ISP in the area is Windstream, and it's 75/mo for 60Mb DSL.
 
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