Charter hit with $13M fine for not delivering on broadband promise

Charter Communications has been served a whopping $13 million fine by New York State’s Public Service Commission (PSC). The commission claims that Charter, now the largest broadband provider in the state, has failed to make good on promises to expand its broadband service to more rural communities as part of its merger deal with Time Warner Cable (TWC).

New York’s PSC reached an agreement with Charter in 2016 as part of the commission’s approval of the merger with TWC, which had 2.5 million subscribers in New York. Under the deal, Charter made a series of commitments to upgrade its broadband network within its New York footprint, including a promise to extend its Spectrum broadband service to 145,000 more residents and businesses by 2020. The agreement included statewide speed upgrades reaching 100 Mbps by 2018 and 300 Mbps by 2019, and a timeline for building out its broadband network in chunks of over 36,000 new residents and businesses per year, to be completed by 2020. Charter was able to upgrade broadband service speeds to 100 Mbps across New York ahead of the 2018 deadline set by its agreement, but has been slow to roll out service to new households and businesses. In its first year, Charter passed just over 15,000 new premises, less than half of what it promised.