Altice USA today unveiled faster broadband service for Cablevision customers in the Tri-State Area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. You can now subscribe to faster service plans topping out at 300Mbps for residential customers and 350Mbps for commercial accounts.

Altice was required to boost internet speeds in New York State as part of winning approval for the buyout of Cablevision from the state’s Department of Public Service (formerly the Public Service Commission). But customers in New Jersey and Connecticut will also benefit.

New Internet Services
(bundling TV and phone service can reduce these prices and customers may need to call 1-888-298-9771 to change service if grandfathered on older plans):

Prior to the upgrade, the fastest speed most customers could get from Cablevision was 101Mbps. Based on pricing, the best value for money is the 200Mbps plan if you are looking for faster service. A $55 charge monthly charge for 300Mbps is $35 more than the logical rate step between lower speed tiers. Standalone customers would effectively pay $114.95 a month for 300Mbps vs. $79.95 for 200Mbps.

Altice has achieved the internet speed requirement imposed by New York regulators more than a year ahead of schedule. The same cannot be said for Charter Communications, which has canceled Time Warner Cable Maxx upgrades that were already underway in former Time Warner service areas. Customers may have to wait until 2019 in New York (later elsewhere) for Charter to upgrade all of its service areas to support 300Mbps. Altice’s other owned-and-operated cable operator – Suddenlink Communications, is also still laboring to boost broadband speeds and has left usage caps and usage billing in place for its customers in mostly smaller cities across the United States.

Schneiderman

(Reuters) – New York state’s attorney general is probing whether three major Internet providers could be shortchanging consumers by charging them for faster broadband speeds and failing to deliver the speeds being advertised, according to documents seen by Reuters.

The letters, sent on Friday to executives at Verizon Communications, Cablevision Systems, and Time Warner Cable ask each company to provide copies of all disclosures they have made to customers, as well as copies of any testing they may have done of their Internet speeds.

“New Yorkers deserve the Internet speeds they pay for. But, it turns out, many of us may be paying for one thing, and getting another,” Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement.

In statements, spokesmen for the three companies expressed confidence in the speeds of their Internet services.

“We’re confident that we provide our customers the speeds and services we promise them and look forward to working with the AG to resolve this matter,” Time Warner Cable spokesman Bobby Amirshahi said.

Cablevision spokesman Charlie Schueler said the company’s Optimum Online service “consistently surpasses advertised broadband speeds, including in FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and internal tests. We are happy to provide any necessary performance information to the Attorney General as we do to our customers.”

A Verizon spokesman said the company would cooperate with Schneiderman’s office. “Verizon is confident in the robust and reliable Internet speeds it delivers to subscribers,” the spokesman said.

The attorney general’s investigation is particularly focused on so-called interconnection arrangements, or contractual deals that Internet service providers strike with other networks for the mutual exchange of data.

In the letters, Schneiderman’s office says it is concerned that customers paying a premium for higher speeds may be experiencing a disruption in their service due to technical problems and business disputes over interconnection agreements.

A 2014 study by the Measurement Lab Consortium, or M-Lab, found that customers’ Internet service tended to suffer at points where their broadband providers connected with long-haul Internet traffic carriers, including Cogent Communications Group.

“Internet service provider interconnection has a substantial impact on consumer Internet performance – sometimes a severely negative impact,” the study said, adding that business relationships rather than technical issues were often at the root of the problem.

A spokesman for the attorney general’s office said the 2014 study’s findings, coupled with consumer complaints and internal analysis, prompted the inquiry into Internet speeds.

Some of the letters also raise questions about speeds delivered by Time Warner Cable and Cablevision to consumers over “the last mile,” a term that refers to the point where a telecommunication chain reaches a retail consumer’s devices.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Peter Cooney, Christian Plumb and Jonathan Oatis)

Cablevision has treated its broadband subscribers to a free speed boost for those signed up for the basic Optimum Online Internet tier. The old speed of 15/5Mbps has today been raised to 25/5Mbps, meeting the FCC’s minimum speed to qualify as broadband service.

Cablevision continues to sell its base Internet service at a non-promotional price of $39.99/month, considerably lower than most other cable operators.

“We are taking the next step as New York’s premiere connectivity company to provide a better, faster data experience both inside and outside the home at no additional cost,” Kristin Dolan, chief operating officer of Cablevision, said in a statement. “This speed increase, along with Optimum WiFi, provides a superior broadband experience to meet and exceed the needs of our customers.”

For now, Cablevision’s other widely available broadband tiers: Optimum Online Ultra 50, Optimum Online Ultra 75 and Optimum Online Ultra 101 are unchanged.

Cablevision broadband customers are likely to see some new, faster upload speeds from the cable operator between now and sometime in July thanks to ongoing competition from Verizon FiOS.

Employees are informally telling Stop the Cap! the cable company has already dropped the “go-away” $300 installation fee for the company’s highest speed Ultra tiers and is set to formally introduce these packages this summer:

• Optimum Online Basic gets an upload speed boost. The 15Mbps download speed stays the same, but the 2Mbps upstream speed increases to 5Mbps;
• Optimum Online Boost will be retired. The 30/5Mbps service was Cablevision’s “turbo” tier, but now customers will be encouraged to consider faster packages;
• Optimum Online Boost Plus will be reintroduced as Optimum Ultra 50. The download speed remains 50Mbps, but upload speed is going up from 8Mbps to 25Mbps;
• Optimum Ultra also gets an upload speed boost. The 101/15Mbps tier becomes 101/35Mbps.

Courtesy: Sutheras

Cablevision did not get back to us in time to confirm the changes, but multiple sources have told us they are imminent.

Customers might appreciate the new speeds, but we’ve also heard from several readers Cablevision is now injecting ad banners into the browsing experience.

“I just started seeing advertisements for Optimum’s new website at the bottom of my screen, regardless of what web page I visit,” writes Dean Portew. “It just started happening and the ads disappear sometimes as quickly as they appear and Cablevision claims to not know anything about it.”

Reviewing the terms of service for Cablevision, the cable company doesn’t call it a web browser ad injection, they call it watermarking and to quote Det. Joe Fontana from the late Law & Order, “we’re authorized.”

32. Watermarking:

Subscriber understands and agrees that Cablevision may use “watermarking” techniques to message you about your account, Optimum services or for other communication purposes while using the Optimum Online Service. These “watermarks” may appear superimposed from time to time over portions of website pages you visit while using the Optimum Online Service, however, you understand and agree that this in no way indicates Cablevision’s approval of or responsibility for the content of such websites, which are solely the responsibility of the website operators and/or content providers. You further agree that you will not seek to hold Cablevision responsible in any way for any third party website content or the operation of any third party website accessed via the Optimum Online Service, or for the appearance of an Optimum “watermark” over a portion of any website.

A number of customers are not too happy about the intrusion, judging from an active discussion on DSL Reports’ Cablevision forum.

Cablevision will maintain unlimited Optimum Online broadband service to all of its customers and will not introduce usage-based pricing, according to Gregg Seibert, chief financial officer.

“I don’t see usage-based billing as something that we have plans for at this time,” Seibert told investors attending this week’s Bank of America/Merrill Lynch Global Telecom and Media Conference in London. “I think it would take a broader industry shift for that type of metered pricing to come in. At this point we don’t see that in the future.”

Cablevision has a long history opposing usage pricing or caps. In 2009, Jim Blackley, Cablevision’s senior vice president of corporate engineering and technology, said usage caps were not in the cable company’s plans:

“We don’t want customers to think about byte caps so that’s not on our horizon,” he said. “We literally don’t want consumers to think about how they’re consuming high-speed services. It’s a pretty powerful drug and we want people to use more and more of it.”

Cablevision’s announcement may also be in response to its biggest competitor. Verizon earlier this year repeated it had no plans for usage-based pricing for FiOS customers either.

Cablevision continues to attract new broadband customers, primarily from customers canceling DSL service but not moving to FiOS.