Albany

State to Charter Communications: Get out of New York.

That's the message in an unprecedented move in the modern telecommunications era when the state Public Service Commission voted Friday to force Charter, New York's largest cable TV company, to find a buyer for its Spectrum TV, internet and phone businesses - and to do it without causing disruption of service.

Charter, with 2.6 million customers in the state, has 60 days to come up with a plan for the divestiture, which the PSC says is the only way to resolve a seven-month war of words, name-calling and regulatory ultimatum between the state and Charter over allegations that the company had violated the conditions of its 2016 acquisition of Time Warner Cable.

"Charter's repeated failures to serve New Yorkers and honor its commitments are well documented and are only getting worse. After more than a year of administrative enforcement efforts to bring Charter into compliance with the commission's merger order, the time has come for stronger actions to protect New Yorkers and the public interest," Rhodes said.

Under the terms of the PSC's approval of that $65 billion deal, Charter was required to extend its high-speed internet network to 145,000 potential new customers in areas where high-speed internet was not available.

Although Charter claimed to have met its obligations, the PSC had rejected tens of thousands of addresses, many of them in New York City that the PSC said were not eligible because of the ubiquity of high-speed internet already there. The state argued most of the expansion should take place in rural areas upstate where the lack of high-speed internet is the greatest.

The vote at the PSC's Empire State Plaza headquarters was unanimous. Chairman John Rhodes was present. Commissioners Gregg Sayre and James Alesi voted by video conference. The PSC's fourth commissioner, Diane Burman, wasn't available to vote Friday.

After the vote, Rhodes told the Times Union there was nothing more that the PSC could do. Charter's build-out of its broadband network was the most important condition of the Time Warner Cable merger, he said.

"If that's not happening, then the basis for approving the merger just evaporated," Rhodes said. "They just didn't perform, and at some point, you just have to say that's the reality."

As what Charter customers should look forward to after the PSC's action, Rhodes said: "They should expect that we are going to do everything that it takes to get a good provider for New York."

The PSC also voted to begin civil court proceedings to recoup potentially millions of dollars from the company for failing to meet milestones of the network expansion project. The commission will seek to convince a state Supreme Court justice to impose fines up to $12 million for failure to live up to a 2017 settlement of the original 2016 agreement that allows the PSC to fine the company

Charter immediately after the vote shot back that the decision reeks of politics less than two months before the gubernatorial primary. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who controls appointments to the commission, faces a Democratic primary challenge on September 13 from Cynthia Nixon and, if he prevails, a general-election contest with Republican Marc Molinaro.

"In the weeks leading up to an election, rhetoric often becomes politically charged," Charter spokesman Andrew Russell said. "But the fact is that Spectrum has extended the reach of our advanced broadband network to more than 86,000 New York homes and businesses since our merger agreement with the PSC. Our 11,000 diverse and locally based workers, who serve millions of customers in the state every day, remain focused on delivering faster and better broadband to more New Yorkers, as we promised."

Russell would not comment on the PSC's specific order that forces the company to sell its New York operations.

However, it is expected that Charter and its lawyers will fight the PSC's decision and try and maintain ownership of its Spectrum cable operations in New York. Charter operates the Spectrum franchise throughout the country, including in other areas where Time Warner Cable operated, including in California.

Even though the Time Warner Cable purchase was two years ago, Charter only started using the Spectrum brand name for services to Capital Region customers in the past year.

Cuomo was not backing down from the PSC's decision on Friday at a press conference in Auburn. The governor, who has been critical of Charter in the past, said he fully supported the PSC's decision, especially since in his mind, consumers have been harmed by the company and are being denied an essential service without additional broadband internet expansion.

"I support it," Cuomo said. "Some of these large corporations think they can get away with murder. ... Just because you're a big corporation doesn't mean you can come in to this state and bully the consumers of the state. ... And that's part of this new corporate wave: 'I'm big, I can do whatever I want.' Not in New York, you can't. It's a very valuable franchise. Any company would want it."

Just last week, Rhodes issued a stinging press release in which he asserted that Charter was "gaslighting" its customers into thinking that it was meeting its obligations with the PSC in a series of cable TV ads and social media posts.