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Connecticut Legal professional Basic William Tong has launched an investigation into Optimum Altice for allegedly misrepresenting its web providers.
The announcement Monday comes after his workplace obtained practically 500 client complaints about gradual web and hidden charges going again to 2017.
“The overwhelming variety of complaints relate to customers who haven’t obtained marketed speeds for Optimum 300 megabits per second and Optimum 400 megabits per second, cable web plans they paid for,” Tong mentioned.
He mentioned these points peaked throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when entry to the web was very important to day-to-day life.
“The web is so vital to us in each side of our lives now,” Tong mentioned. “And folks have been capable of show to themselves and to us that they paid for 300 or 400 megabits per second and so they’re not getting that.”
A number of prospects discovered they weren’t receiving their web pace that they paid for after working pace assessments. A buyer with a compromised immune system reported that her web ran as little as 16 megabits per second — far beneath the web pace they paid for.
Shoppers mentioned they had been additionally charged for help providers regardless of their web issues not being resolved. This investigation may even decide if Optimum Altice has been knowingly charging prospects with hidden extra charges and addressing their poor technical assist.
“Altice shares the state’s aim of guaranteeing Connecticut residents and companies obtain high-quality service and have a optimistic buyer expertise. That’s the reason Altice has been investing throughout Connecticut, constructing and deploying a 100% Optimum Fiber broadband community that gives dependable infrastructure and symmetrical web providers to our communities and prospects,” an Optimum Altice spokesperson mentioned in an announcement.
The corporate mentioned Connecticut was one of many first areas the place multi-gigabit speeds had been launched earlier this 12 months to satisfy broadband wants of shoppers. It additionally affords the Inexpensive Connectivity Program, which gives free high-speed web service.
“We’re proud to serve our Connecticut communities and can cooperate with state officers to supply related info,” the spokesperson mentioned.
The web and cable supplier has been investigated for related points in different states. In 2021, New Jersey launched its personal probe into Optimum Altice’s poor web high quality after receiving tons of of complaints since 2016. The Asbury Park Press experiences web providers would go down for hours within the state and web speeds would continually fluctuate. Altice claimed that these points had been attributable to a 40% improve in common information utilization attributable to work and colleges going digital throughout the peak of the pandemic.
Marilyn Davis, senior director for presidency affairs at Altice USA, informed the Asbury Park Press that, “Because of the pandemic and different occasions, 2020 offered distinctive and unprecedented challenges for Altice because it did for different corporations and people throughout the nation.” Nonetheless, New Jersey officers discovered that these web service points occurred even earlier than the pandemic started.
Tong anticipates the investigation might end in a settlement. Connecticut obtained $60 million in funds from Frontier Communications earlier this 12 months. Frontier did not ship marketed web pace, charged hidden extra charges and charged prospects for gear that they had already returned or for providers that they had canceled.
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