Alleging that one of the nation’s dominant cable and internet providers “has been ripping you off,” state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on Wednesday announced his office had sued Charter Communications and its subsidiary Spectrum, formerly known as Time Warner Cable.

In a Manhattan news conference, he said the 87-page complaint — filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan — told “a consistent story of bad performance and a long-term business plan built on deceit.”

The communications giant is the dominant cable and internet service provider in the Capital Region.

The suit claims that at least since January 2012, the company engaged in what Schneiderman referred to in a Manhattan press conference as a “deliberate scheme” to defraud and mislead customers about what Charter’s subsidiaries claimed were “blazing fast” connectivity speeds. Frequently, it failed to deliver — deficiencies that were discussed in numerous corporate communications excerpted in the complaint, but were allegedly ignored by corporate officials due to the cost of capital improvements.

“But rather than provide subscribers with Internet service that achieved the promised Internet speeds, Spectrum-TWC provided subscribers with deficient equipment and a network that it knew were incapable of reliably delivering the promised speeds,” states the complaint, which seeks a full accounting from Charter as well as restitution for up to 5 million customers.

The complaint says Spectrum-TWC leased deficient cable modems to more than 900,000 subscribers in New York, devices that were incapable of delivering the advertised speeds. As of a year ago, the company was charging more than 185,000 New Yorkers — roughly 7 percent of its subscribers at the time — $10 a month for modems that were not capable of supporting the service levels paid for.

Schneiderman’s office conducted its own tests, which showed Spectrum-TWC delivered to those subscribing to its fastest speed plans (which offered 300 megabits per second) only a third to a half of the download speeds they were paying as much as $109.99 monthly to receive.

Also, the complaint alleges that the company engaged in a practice known as “over-provisioning” to hoodwink regulators at the Federal Communications Commission by using speed tests from low-service areas to mask slow speeds in more densely serviced regions in aggregated reports. The complaint said a 2013 engineering presentation described the use of the tactic as “putting lipstick on a pig.”

“Reliable internet access is not a luxury, it is a necessity,” Schneiderman said. He noted that Charter’s subsidiaries provide internet service to 2.5 million households in New York — a third of the households that pay for access.

In a statement, Charter said it was “disappointed that the NY Attorney General chose to file this lawsuit regarding Time Warner Cable’s broadband speed advertisements that occurred prior to Charter’s merger. … Charter has already made substantial investments in the interest of upgrading the Time Warner Cable systems and delivering the best possible experience to customers. We will continue to invest in our business and deliver the highest quality services to our customers while we defend against these allegations involving Time Warner Cable practices.”

The 16-month probe has been conducted in consultation with Tim Wu, the internet expert, academic and 2014 gubernatorial running mate of Zephyr Teachout.

In June 2016, Wu wrote to Charter to warn it that it would take a “fundamental revolution” in business practices and customer service, and not a mere name change, to overcome the developing evidence of its poor performance.

Here’s the complete press conference:

Here’s the complaint:





Here’s the full response from Charter:

“We are disappointed that the NY Attorney General chose to file this lawsuit regarding Time Warner Cable’s broadband speed advertisements that occurred prior to Charter’s merger. Charter made significant commitments to NY State as part of our merger with Time Warner Cable in areas of network investment, broadband deployment and offerings, customer service and jobs. In addition, Charter was among the highest rated broadband providers in the 2016 FCC Broadband Report. Charter has already made substantial investments in the interest of upgrading the Time Warner Cable systems and delivering the best possible experience to customers. We will continue to invest in our business and deliver the highest quality services to our customers while we defend against these allegations involving Time Warner Cable practices.”

Here’s the full release from Schneiderman’s office: