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Tag: Cablevision

  • Verizon Sued For False Internet Speed Claims

    Verizon Sued For False Internet Speed Claims

    Have you ever been disappointed in a piece of technology or service after being convinced by a company salesperson that it is the way to go? I think most of us have. Typically we can return the item or cancel the service, but this isn’t always as easy as it sounds, and sometimes it can get messy if you signed a contract or weren’t explained a return policy correctly.

    A Los Angeles woman is suing Verizon for false claims regarding the speed of their DSL service. Patricia Allen claims she was duked into a plan upgrade that promised more speed (1.5 Mb/sec.), but when it came time to perform her connection barely reached half the speed.

    She tried to dispute her charges and was told by a Verizon technician that she simply lived too far from the source to ever receive the connection speed they advertise with the product. In fact, she was advised to downgrade as her lines can only accept a speed up to 768k /second.

    About three months ago, Cablevision Systems Corporation also filed a lawsuit against Verizon regarding DSL speeds. In this case Verizon was attacking the cable network provider for advertising false claims about the speed of their service.

    The irony of this lawsuit is that the FCC actually reports that Cablevision is consistently broadcasting at 90% of their advertised speed during peak usage hours and even higher during non-peak hours. So, essentially Verizon is accusing Cablevision, in their advertising campaign, of doing what Verizon actually does; promising higher DSL speeds than they can actually deliver.

    I don’t really know what to think about these antics from Verizon. Sometimes the big corporate machine is just full of BS. Possibly I am wrong, but it sounds like Verizon is being hypocritical in their ad campaigns and dishonest in dealing with their customers. Not good!

  • Want The Fastest Internet? You Better Go With Cable

    Tired of having those lags in loading a streaming video that interrupt your all-important viewing enjoyment? Want to be able to download gobs of torrents in the blink of an eye? Feel like your Internet connection moves slower than a sloth’s languid bowel movement? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these and find yourself craving the very fastest in Internet broadband speed, a new analysis suggests that you get yourself a cable ISP.

    Ookla, the global leader in independent broadband testing, has completed a study of all ISPs’ average download speeds in 2011 and found that throughout the year the six fastest ISPs were Comcast, Charter Communications, Cablevision Systems, Time Warner Cable, and Insight Communications. According to the report, Comcast and Charter were found to have an average download speed of 17.19 Megabits per second. Cablevision ranked third at 16.40 Mbps, Cox at fourth at 15.74 Mbps, Time Warner placed fifth at 14.41 Mbps and Insight followed in at sixth at 14.22 Mbps.

    Craig Moffett, a senior analyst with Sanford Bernstein, told Multichannel News that cable’s rule over the broadband dominion won’t be ending anytime soon. “As more people are served by higher-speed connections,” said, “more and more applications are evolving to take advantage of them. Customers with lower-speed connections are increasingly being forced to upgrade to higher speed connections… or be left behind.”

    In other words, you get movin’ so fast that you can’t slow yourself down.

    Verizon was a stand-alone among telco and DSL providers in being the only non-MSO that managed to hold a candle to the cable provider’s broadband speed. Verizon was clocked as having an average download speed of 12.94 Mbps. Other than that, its telco contemporaries and DSL providers, as a comparison, were moving at not-quite-corpse speed. AT&T, for example, averaged a download speed as 4.40 Mbps and Qwest Communications averaged 6.34 Mbps.

    Stepping down from a cable modem these days to a telco or DSL provider would probably feel like running into a quicksand trap for many users, especially if the difference is going to be as low as 25% of the download speed you’re used to.

    It seems that the high speed dominance of multiple system operators isn’t that big of a secret to Internet users as as Comcast and Time Warner are already the top two worldwide MSOs with 22,360,000 and 12,109,000 subscribers, respectively. Or, alternately, if you’re already tethered to one of these MSOs and were holding out on some impossibly faster ISP out there, well, sorry – you’re not gonna get much faster Internets anytime in the near future.

  • Verizon and Cablevision Settle Out of Court

    On December 7 we brought you a story that New York cable company Cablevision had filed suit against Verizon over ads accusing Cablevision of delivering just over half its promised data speeds during peak hours. In the ads Verizon said the data came from a “just released” FCC study. Cablevision argued that the information in the ads was outdated and inaccurate, while Verizon protested that they intended to defend against the suit vigorously.

    Today, less than two weeks later, the companies have agreed to settle the suit out of court. Though the terms of the agreement are not known, Verizon told the court that the ad campaign had run its course as of December 17, and that Cablevision’s request to have the ads pulled was no longer needed.

    These ads were based on a study done by the FCC in March, but not published until August, that showed the data speeds of a number of internet service providers. Though the report did show Cablevision only delivering about 60% of their promised speed during, the company maintained that they had improved their network. A blog post by the FCC agreed, specifically citing Cablevision as a company that had made dramatic improvements in service since their original findings were released. Cablevision and Verizon are the two main internet service providers for New York City.

    [Source: Bloomberg]

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  • Cablevision Files Suit Against Verizon

    New York-based cable television provider Cablevision has filed suit in federal court in Brooklyn against Verizon over claims made in the latter’s advertising about Cablevision’s internet connection speeds.

    Verizon has been running a series of ads for its FiOS network. In these ads the company cites an FCC report that says that during peak hours Cablevision’s broadband customers were seeing download speeds that averaged 50% of the company’s advertised speed of 15 megabits per second (Mbps). Cablevision objects to Verizon’s use of the report in the ads, arguing that the information on Cablevision’s data speeds is outdated. Moreover, it argues that Verizon has continued to run the ads despite repeated contact between the two companies in which Cablevision has made Verizon aware of the inaccuracies.

    The Measuring Broadband America report was released by the FCC in March and continued to be updated until June. Verizon ads are accurate in that the data in the report does show Cablevision customers experience less than 60% of promised download speeds during peak hours. The chart from the original report is below:

    Cablevision’s argument, though, is that although the data was accurate at the time of the report, it is no longer so. The company argues that they have improved their broadband service dramatically since the report was released. What’s more, the FCC itself backs Cablevision up on this point. In a blog post dated Monday, Chief of the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Joel Gurin discussed some of the positive changes that have already been brought about since the report’s release. He says that since the original report was released the FCC has continued to collect data on the broadband speeds. He singles out Cablevision as a particular example of the kind of improvement that has been observed since the report was originally published. He notes that in the most recent month for which the FCC has data, October, subscribers to Cablevision’s 15 Mbps broadband service were seeing sustained download speeds during peak hours of 90% of the advertised speed, as compared to an average of 89% among all the other non-Cablevision companies.

    As of this afternoon, a page on Verizon’s website describing the company’s broadband performance still includes the following chart from the Measuring Broadband America report. Cablevision claims that Verizon has known the chart to be inaccurate for some time.

    Verizon has said they will defend against the suit vigorously. Bloomberg is reporting a statement by a Verizon spokesman in which the company casts aspersions on the truth of Cablevision’s own advertising, and vowed to continue setting the record straight.

  • Newsday Pay Wall Nets 35 Subscribers in 3 Months

    There has been a lot of discussion about the fate of the online news industry lately, particularly since the New York Times announced that it will be going the paid content route next year. Another New York-based publication, Newsday, already charges for its online content. After three months of doing so, it has reportedly only managed to attract 35 subscribers.

    Newsday.com is free for those who subscribe to Newsday (print) or ISP Optimum Online. Otherwise, you have to pay $5 a week ($260 a year).

    According to the New York Observer, the publication revealed its 35-member subscription base in a newsroom-wide meeting last week, when a reporter asked how many people subscribed. 35 people at $5 a week for 12 weeks is $2,100. If they are all signed up for the year, that’s $9,100 so far. Cablevision purchased Newsday for $650 million in 2008.

    Reuters editor Robert MacMillan offered the following tweet on the matter:

    Reuters Editor Tweets

    According to data from Compete, Newsday.com’s traffic has been taking a steady nosedive. From the three month period between September and December (the pay wall started in October), Compete has the site’s US unique monthly visitors plummet from just over two million to just over one million. It will be interesting to see if January’s numbers extend the trend at a similar pace.

    Newsday.com promises that when you register for a subscription, you will gain access to:

    – Breaking local news
    – High school sports scores and stats
    – ExploreLI – your online guide to fun on LI
    – Latest HD quality videos and photos
    – Customizable news and information that matters the most to you
    – Exclusive newsday.com newsletters and text alerts
    – Newsday deals and discounts

    The question is, is this stuff worth paying for? Apparently for a few people it is, but based on the information presented by the Observer, it’s not looking good as a business model. One can only assume that the less traffic that comes in, the less advertisers will be attracted, and if the pay wall isn’t generating the money either, how can it work?

    I don’t know about the deals and discounts, but is the local news offered so unique that it can’t be found elsewhere? High school sports scores?

    To be fair, it hasn’t been an incredibly long time since Newsday’s pay wall was introduced, but how long will they give it to gain momentum before they give up on it? How long would you wait? Discuss here. 

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