Broadband service is available to 99.1% of the Bronx and 99.8% of the Rochester and its suburbs, but just 38.5% of Bronx residents are using the internet at broadband speeds (at least 25/3 Mbps) and only 54% of Monroe County residents are receiving a true broadband experience.

These two New York communities, one in the dense New York City area, the other straddling the Finger Lakes region and Western New York, are examples of the FCC’s vast over-count of consumers getting suitable broadband service and speed, according to Microsoft. The problem is much worse in rural areas where DSL speeds predominate and providers like Verizon and Frontier are in no hurry to upgrade their rural networks.

“These significant discrepancies across nearly all counties in all 50 states indicates there is a problem with the accuracy of the access data reported by the FCC,” Microsoft said about its findings. “Additional data sources like ours, as well as work by others to examine data in a few states or regions, are important to understanding the problem.”

Microsoft’s performance data is not alone representative of a local cable company not delivering advertised speeds. For example, in the Bronx, affordability issues mean that more residents rely on their cell phones and mobile connectivity for internet access. In Rochester, where true broadband speeds usually cost $50-65 a month depending on the provider, affordability is also a factor. But there is also the presence of local telephone company Frontier Communications, which has saddled Rochester with inferior DSL service it has no concrete plans to upgrade. Frontier DSL usually offers substandard speed of 12 Mbps or much less, making its customers part of Microsoft’s estimation of those underserved.

Schumer

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) complained about the state of broadband in New York, claiming internet speeds are “horrible” in much of the state and broadband providers are not being honest about advertised speed.

“When there’s slow internet, it drives you crazy​.​ ​You just sit and wait and wait and wait. It’s horrible,” Schumer said at a news conference held Sunday in Manhattan. “There’s a new report out that says our internet here in New York may​ ​be moving more like molasses than like lightning.”

Schumer is taking direct aim at the recent positive report from the FCC that broadband has dramatically improved in the United States, a conclusion the Republicans serving at the FCC took credit for, explaining policies of deregulation and elimination of net neutrality spurred private investment and better internet service for all.

“But Microsoft did its own report, and it shows that over four and a half million New Yorkers and Long Islanders are not getting the speed on the internet that the carriers say they’re getting​, [and] that’s a real problem,” Schumer argued, adding that most consumers are not getting consistent access to at least 25/3 Mbps service. “It’s like paying for the speed of a car but getting the speed of a bicycle.”

Schumer wants the FCC to hold providers to account for their broadband speed and performance. But last week, the FCC had other ideas, delaying broadband performance testing requirements until 2020 for internet service providers receiving taxpayer or ratepayer funds to build out their networks.

“T​he FCC is falling down on the job,” Schumer said. “I don’t think it’s nefarious but the providers, to upgrade to the required speed​,​ would have to pay for more equipment. They should. We’re all paying big bills for that.”

One of Frontier Communication’s largest legacy service areas is suffering from some of the same bad service reported by rural communities in states like California, Minnesota, and Florida.

News10NBC reports that some customers in Rochester, N.Y. have spent “weeks without reliable telephone service and very few answers.”

Frontier landline customer Andy Melnyk says the problems with his phone service began six weeks ago. The line frequently goes dead with no dial tone, and customers calling the Rochester family get nothing but a busy signal.

“I thought okay, they fixed it, let it go and then it happened again,” Melnyk reports. Despite the service problems, Frontier has not offered any bill credits, or a satisfactory explanation for the problem.

“[It’s] just like a black hole, you can’t find anything out,” Melnyk’s wife Kay told the station. “They’re not being very transparent about what the problem is, [and] what they’re doing to solve it.”

The Melnyk family is not alone. Other Frontier customers in the neighborhood are dealing with the same issue.

It took News10NBC to get involved to get a statement from Frontier, claiming the problem is a wet copper cable.

“Frontier technicians are working to repair a large-diameter copper cable damaged when recent rainstorms flooded an underground vault,” Frontier said in a statement. “Services were restored for affected customers by March 7, however, the permanent repair process needed to splice new cable is complex and takes time. We expect to finish the work this weekend. We thank our customers and the communities we serve for their patience as Frontier crews work safely and diligently to maintain our network and keep communities connected.”

Maintaining deteriorating copper wire infrastructure that other phone companies discarded years ago in favor of fiber optics can be complex and time-consuming. But other companies have found upgrading to fiber has given their networks more reliability and happier customers. But Frontier has shown no signs of launching fiber upgrades for customers in their legacy copper wire service areas.

Meanwhile, when asked if Frontier customers will receive bill credits for the problems, a Frontier spokesperson told the station they will consider that on a “case by case basis.”

WHEC in Rochester reports Frontier customers in parts of Rochester, N.Y. have experienced weeks of bad service and are not getting any answers why. (2:36)

It was the leading story on local newscasts up and down New York State — Charter Spectrum, accused of failing to provide the internet speed and reliability it promised agreed to pay $174.2 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the New York Attorney General’s office.

It was a story hard to miss. “Breaking News” tweets were sent from multiple television and newspaper newsrooms from Buffalo to Albany. Local newscasts in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Binghamton and Albany all included extensive coverage, while stations in Elmira and New York City mentioned it in passing. Newspapers gave the story the same treatment a winter storm might normally get. All gave the story of Spectrum’s settlement prominent coverage on their websites.

All except one.

Spectrum News — multiple 24/7 news channels serving Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, and the venerable NY1 from New York City, had absolutely nothing to say about the story on its many websites. In fact, Spectrum News did not cover the New York Public Service Commission’s decision to expel its parent company from the state either (a matter still under negotiation by the PSC and Charter Communications).

At Spectrum News, no news about the owner is apparently better than reporting bad news, so coverage is generally missing when it comes to reporting on the state’s largest cable company.

WHAM in Rochester, like many stations around the state, opened its newscast with news of the Spectrum settlement.

It did not used to be this way. In Rochester, Greater Rochester Cablevision began covering local news in 1990, with a firm firewall between the reporters at “WGRC” and company executives. That firewall remained in place through multiple rebrandings including GRC9News and R News, operated by Time Warner Cable, which bought the local cable company in 1995.

In 2009, R News fairly covered the controversy of Time Warner Cable trialing data caps in Rochester (a plan that was quickly shelved after subscriber blowback). But beginning in the 2010s, cracks in the firewall were rumored and reporters began avoiding stories painting their parent company in a bad light. By the time the news channel was rebranded YNN Rochester in the summer of 2009, reports about the cable company were brief at best. As the channel became Spectrum News Rochester in 2016, reporting on the cable company and its competitors was almost entirely gone altogether.

In April 2018, Rochester businessman and philanthropist Tom Golisano acquired Greenlight Networks, a fiber to the home provider competing directly with Charter Spectrum. It was breaking news and extensively covered in the local media, except by Spectrum News, which otherwise regularly covers Golisano’s activities.

The apparent lack of a firewall and a potential written or unwritten/understood policy interfering with coverage of legitimate news is a serious blow to Spectrum News’ credibility. There is no legitimate reason we can find for Spectrum News to “miss” stories about its parent company, and in some instances reporters merely need to cross the building to interview local executives.

In Rochester, where the Gannett news empire was born in 1923, there is a long history of protecting journalistic credibility. When the Gannett Company published two daily local newspapers, the morning Democrat & Chronicle and the afternoon Times-Union fiercely competed with each other, with a strict firewall in place between the two newspapers. Reporters joked the only place they could interact was in a neutral zone where the newswire teletype machines once operated. There was never any question that a story about the Gannett Company would be fair and free of interference from the newspapers’ owners.

Spectrum News needs to adopt a similar policy and cover news that is worth covering, with no interference from company executives. Otherwise, it is little more than a token gesture to paying subscribers, who will always suspect corporate interference is alive and well at the news outlet.

Customers deserve better.

Spectrum customers living in areas wired for fiber optics get substantially better discounts for longer periods of time than those living in areas where anemic phone company DSL service is the only competition.

Charter Communications, like many cable operators, asks all prospective customers to enter their complete mailing address, claiming prices “vary per location.” What the company does not say is that it maintains a database of addresses where fiber-fast competition is currently available and only offers the best deals to those locations.

In Rochester, N.Y., Spectrum competitor Greenlight Networks has made headway installing fiber to the home service in select neighborhoods in the city and suburbs. As fiber service becomes available, some Spectrum customers start switching to Greenlight, which markets 100/20 Mbps service for $50/mo, 500/50 Mbps for $75/mo, or 1,000/100 Mbps for $100/mo. In response, to keep customers, Spectrum offers 24 months of reduced pricing on its internet package. But your address must match Spectrum’s database as being within a competitive service area. Otherwise, the deals will not be so good.

Stop the Cap! found dramatic differences in prices between addresses nearly across a street from one another – one wired for Greenlight Fiber, the other not.

Competitive Area (Spectrum, Frontier DSL, Greenlight fiber-to-the-home service)

Spectrum Ultra (400 Mbps): $44.99/month for 24 months (free upgrade from Standard 100 Mbps package)

All promotions last 24 months

Free Wi-Fi Service

No installation or set up fee*

Non-Competitive Area (Spectrum, Frontier DSL)

Spectrum Standard (100 Mbps): $44.99/month for 12 months (for Ultra 400 Mbps, add $25/mo)

All promotions last 12 months

Wi-Fi Service is $5/month

$49.99 professional installation fee required for Ultra 400 Mbps service*

In Greenlight service areas, Spectrum now undercuts Greenlight’s pricing by offering Spectrum Ultra 400 Mbps service for $5 less than what Greenlight charges for 100 Mbps.

“Racerbob,” a DSL Reports reader in Webster, N.Y., discovered the same “enhanced offers” as an ex-Spectrum customer. He switched to Greenlight three months ago. He discovered if he added a Spectrum cable TV package, the price for 400 Mbps Ultra internet service dropped even lower, to $39.99 a month for two years.

In all, a sample package he assembled delivered dramatic savings, but only if a robust competitor like Greenlight was also offering service to his address:

Addresses used for comparison were in zip code 14618, with verified access to Greenlight at a street address to represent the “competitive” service area and verification Greenlight was not available at the address used for “non-competitive” service area. *-Although a setup fee was found on the final checkout page in both competitive and non-competitive service areas, it was only actually charged in non-competitive service areas during our investigation.

A Rochester, N.Y.-based broadband company founded by an ex-president of Time Warner Cable and a former top executive at Rochester Telephone is bringing broadband competition to thousands of residents in Connecticut and Pennsylvania through its fiber-to-the-home network.

GoNetspeed has been aggressively expanding its service in Comcast, Verizon, and Frontier Communications service areas in suburban Pittsburgh and several cities in Connecticut. According to chief operating officer Tom Perrone, GoNetspeed has managed to buildout 100 network miles of fiber across 13 towns in two different states in just the first six months of 2018, providing a new choice for broadband service to over 30,000 homes and businesses.

Most recently, the company completed expansion in the New Haven, Conn. neighborhoods of Beaver Hills, Edgewood, and West River, adding an additional 3,000-5,000 homes to its network service area.

GoNetspeed prioritizes expansion in areas where there is little competition and where neighborhood density makes it financially feasible to bring fiber optic cables into an area. The company markets its service with simplified, lifetime pricing:

• $50 for 100/100 Mbps
• $70 for 500/500 Mbps
• $90 for 1,000/1,000 Mbps

In areas when service is first offered, the $100 installation fee is traditionally waived. There are no data caps. Static IPs and inside wiring are available at an additional cost.

GoNetspeed has received positive reviews from customers in parts of Bridgeport and West Hartford, where service is already available in Connecticut. In suburban Pittsburgh, GoNetspeed is available in parts of Ambridge, Beaver Falls, Baden, Conway, Beaver, Monaca, and Rochester. Over the summer, it announced it would soon also service New Brighton and Aliquippa. In general, the company wires neighborhoods where at least 10% of residents are committed to signing up for service. In Pennsylvania, it faces competition primarily from Comcast and Verizon. In Connecticut, competition will come from incumbents Comcast, Altice USA, and Frontier.

GoNetspeed’s headquarters are in suburban Rochester, N.Y. Ironically, it does not offer residential service in New York.

A GoNetspeed truck

The company originally behind GoNetspeed was Fibertech Networks (since sold to Crown Castle, a cell tower owner/operator). The founding partners were John K. Purcell, a former vice president at Rochester Telephone Corporation (now Frontier Communications) and Frank Chiano, the former head of Time Warner Cable in Rochester.

Fibertech was founded in 2000 as a fiber optic network operator. Purcell passed away in 2017, but Fibertech continued, eventually amassing a valuable 14,000 mile metro fiber network serving cities around the northeast. Fibertech served commercial customers like corporations, institutions, and wireless network operators seeking fiber connections to buildings or cell tower sites.

In the last several years, fiber network operators have started to enter the retail broadband marketplace as fiber overbuilders — providing fiber to the home service to areas where demand warrants investment. Most overbuilders target areas where no existing fiber competitor exists, which makes the northeast a viable target.

Verizon dropped its FiOS fiber to the home network expansion project eight years ago and incumbent telephone companies including Verizon, Frontier, Consolidated (formerly FairPoint), Windstream, and CenturyLink have shown little interest in investing in significant fiber upgrades in medium-sized cities in New England, the Northeast, and Mid-Atlantic region. That has given Comcast and Charter Communications — the two largest cable operators, a substantial and growing market share. But customers often loathe both cable operators, and there is built-in demand for new competition.

New Haven. Conn.

Local officials are also happy to see another competitive option. New Haven officials, like many others in Connecticut, have embarked on an effort during the last few years to attract new players to the state, especially after Frontier Communications acquired the assets of AT&T Connecticut. Many communities in Connecticut report a significant digital divide, particularly over the cost of internet access. New Haven, which has a significant low-income population, is happy to see GoNetspeed be part of the solution, but has wondered if GoNetspeed will expand service into lower-income areas of the city.

Connecticut Consumer Counsel Elin Swanson Katz, whose office manages broadband expansion in Connecticut, told the New Haven Register GoNetspeed’s expansion in New Haven “is just another strong indicator that Connecticut consumers are interested in having different options for broadband Internet service.”

“The more competition there is for consumers, for them to have choices, the better off we are,” Katz said. “It’s really important for our state to have ubiquitous access to affordable high-speed broadband that is reliable and that touches every corner of out state.”