Sean Lahman

@seanlahman

Upstate New York is lagging when it comes to internet access, and industry experts say the ramifications are troubling for struggling local economies.

For the last few years, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has spearheaded an initiative to help expand broadband access to underserved communities. But critics say the program is not doing enough to bridge the digital divide that exists between downstate and upstate.

Phil Dampier, founder of Stop the Cap, an advocacy group that fights for better broadband, says the quality of service for New Yorkers drops dramatically once you move west of the Hudson Valley.

"We are slow and dismal," said Dampier. "We're way behind a lot of other states when it comes to innovation and development."

The Federal Communications Commission set 25 Mbps (megabits per second) as the minimum speed for broadband service. What does that mean?

A few years ago 25 Mbps was considered very fast, and for some users that may still be adequate. If you're sending emails or browsing Facebook from your computer, you're not likely to run into any problems. You'll need about 5 Mbps to stream an HD movie on Netflix.

But usage patterns have changed. People own more devices that are competing for that bandwidth on home networks. When you put a smart TV, a couple of laptops, smartphones and a few internet-connected devices on one home network, the service can slow to a crawl.

Read more

► Advice on improving your Internet speed

► Questions to ask when buying Internet service

► Slow internet? Test it and tell the state

►Time Warner Cable is now Spectrum

For businesses that have moved to the cloud, the demands have also increased dramatically.

"Speeds of 100 Mbps are the standard in most places," Dampier says, "but in much of the state, those speeds simply aren't available."

Statewide, 74 percent have access to broadband at speeds of 100 Mbps or faster. In Westchester County, it's 100 percent. It's 95 percent in Brooklyn and 84.8 percent in Albany.

But data gathered by industry watchdog Broadband Now shows a starkly different picture in western New York and the Southern Tier. In Monroe County, only 48 percent of residents have access to 100 Mbps service. It's 25 percent in Broome County and 4 percent in Tompkins County. If you live in Chemung or Orleans or Wayne County, it's essentially unavailable.

Dampier says that the governor's plan to bring 25 Mbps to rural areas and 100 Mbps to other underserved communities is an important step, but doesn't go far enough. It doesn't help residents whose existing internet providers aren't offering packages at those speeds.

"The problem is so big in upstate that you had to start somewhere," Dampier said.

Promises, promises

Even when they offer faster speeds, internet providers in New York can't always deliver.

A yearlong investigation by State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman concluded that some consumers who signed up for premium plans were actually getting speeds as much as 70 percent slower than promised. That investigation prompted a lawsuit filed in February against Time Warner Cable (now called Spectrum), alleging that the company deliberately scammed customers by promising internet speeds its hardware was incapable of providing.

"There's been a move in recent years to introduce new packages that offer faster speeds," Schneiderman said, "but that has often happened without making any effort to improve the equipment or making adjustments to their network."

Schneiderman said he would continue to gather information on other internet providers, asking consumers to test their internet speeds and submit results to his office. He said additional action might be forthcoming.

"We are looking broadly at this industry," he said. "It's an ongoing investigation and we want to make sure that people continue to test their internet speeds."

For many parts of upstate, consumers have little choice when it comes to purchasing internet services. The typical options are one cable company and one phone company offering internet service. Without significant competition, there's no incentive for companies to invest in building a better infrastructure. This would require significant spending to deploy the fiber optic cable networks that faster internet would require.

Spectrum arrives

The dominant service provider in Western New York has long been Time Warner Cable, which was purchased by Charter Communications last year. The $67 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Florida based Bright House Networks made Charter the second-largest home internet provider in the U.S.

Charter, which is based in Stamford, Connecticut, says it now has 24 million subscribers in 41 states, including western New York and the Southern Tier. The company is offering services under the Spectrum brand name.

“At Charter, we are working hard to redefine what a cable company can be and we call it Spectrum,” said Tom Rutledge, Charter chairman and CEO, in a statement earlier this week.

At this point it's unclear what impact the new company will have on the quality and price of broadband service. A company spokesman said it plans to offer faster speeds to existing customers.

"Spectrum’s starting internet speed of 60 Mbps is faster than the fastest offering from TWC in Buffalo and Rochester," said Andrew Russell, Charter's director of communications for the Northeast. "We also offer a 100 Mbps service, well in advance of our December 2018 commitment to do so across our New York service area."

The challenge of making these upgrades in an inherited physical network is not trivial. One of the strategies will be freeing up capacity by transitioning to an all-digital lineup for television service. This would likely take a couple of years for former Time Warner Cable systems that are not currently all-digital, including Rochester and Buffalo.

Spectrum currently offers 300 Mbps speeds in New York City and the Hudson Valley.

The company also plans to offer nationally uniform pricing. They say some existing TWC customers may see faster speeds for a lower price.

"Spectrum Internet is a very good value — 60 Mbps for $53.99/month for Spectrum TV customers, with no modem fees, data caps or contracts," Russell said. "By contrast, TWC Internet at 15 Mbps was $59.99/month retail, plus $10 leased modem fee if you didn’t own your own modem."

Affording home broadband

High prices have been as much a problem for upstate customers as slow speeds. Too often, that means that broadband service has simply been unaffordable for many households.

Rochester and Buffalo appeared on a list of the 25 worst connected U.S. cities published last November.

The report, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, looked at the percentage of households that lacked access to fixed broadband internet service. The median for cities with at least 50,000 households was 28.6 percent. Rochester ranked 12th at 42.7 percent. Buffalo was 16th at 42.1 percent. Totals in Southern Tier counties like Chemung (37.8), Broome (35.3), and Tompkins (31.9) were comparable.

Even though broadband service is available in those urban centers, many households can't afford to pay the monthly fees. This puts students at a disadvantage, of course, but also creates challenges for families who increasingly are directed to the internet for interactions that used to take place offline.

"Lack of access to sufficient bandwidth and current digital skills holds those individuals back, which impacts their communities," said Angela Siefer, director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. "In addition, industries such as banking and health have demonstrated how they can reduce costs through consumer technology, but that only works if the consumers have affordable bandwidth, the appropriate devices, relevant digital skills and tech support."

Siefer says the disparity is greatest among the most vulnerable populations — low-income, undereducated, seniors, children and the disabled. A study by the Pew Research Center found that more people in those populations are reliant on smartphones as their only way to connect to the internet.

Most cell service providers have data caps which drives up the cost of connectivity. Relying on Wi-Fi connections is often insufficient, and many websites simply don't work well on smartphones.

"The issue needs to be addressed through affordable broadband, appropriate devices, relevant skills and tech support." Siefer said. "Only addressing the infrastructure piece of the equation is common and shortsighted. Simple availability of broadband service in a region does not address the barriers of affordability (of home broadband and devices) or lack of digital skills."

Faster elsewhere

That hasn't been the case in other parts of the country, such as Raleigh, North Carolina, or Chattanooga, Tennessee. The development of 1-gigabit networks — 10 times faster than 100 Mbps — are attracting high-tech businesses to those regions.

The loss of manufacturing jobs is not unique to upstate cities. What's been different is the aggressiveness with which some communities have pursued high speed internet as an engine of economic growth.

In Rochester, mayoral candidate Rachel Barnhart has proposed a citywide fiber network as part of her campaign platform. Public funding of high speed networks is an idea that's been discussed in some parts of upstate, but finding both the political will and the millions of dollars required are huge hurdles.

"Syracuse has looked at it," said Dampier. "Ithaca is working on its own public broadband network."

Smaller companies have built out 1-gigabit networks to small pockets of residents; those include Greenlight Networks in Rochester, Fiberspark in Ithaca and Empire Access in Corning, Elmira and other spots across the Southern Tier. But Dampier says the scale of those networks falls short of what's needed to turn the tide.

"Rust Belt economies are reinventing themselves in the digital knowledge economy," said Dampier. "Businesses rise and fall based on the infrastructure that's available. We are way behind the rest of the country in this regard."

Dampier says efforts to jump-start upstate economies with publicly funded jobs programs, like the state and federal collaboration to bring a photonics institute to Rochester, won't succeed if they don't include a plan for improving network infrastructures.

"Employers, small business start-ups and workers moving into the region are likely to be considerably less impressed by Rochester’s incumbent telecommunications service providers." Dampier said. "The area’s fiber future remains bleak."

SLAHMAN@Gannett.com