Connecticut Attorney General (AG) William Tong opened an investigation into Altice USA’s Optimum internet service, after hundreds of consumers alleged the operator failed to deliver promised speeds. The probe comes shortly after Tong’s office inked a $60 million settlement deal with Frontier Communications over consumer complaints about its marketing practices.
Tong’s office said it received nearly 500 complaints against Altice over the past fives years. The majority of these have come from subscribers on Optimum’s 300 Mbps or 400 Mbps service tiers who conducted speed tests and found they were not getting the speeds they ordered. But the AG’s office noted consumers also complained about poor technical support and service fees, including a $3.50 “network enhancement fee” that was tacked on to internet customer bills.
Among other things, Tong’s office has asked Altice to provide records of consumer complaints as well as details about its internet plan marketing, any network performance analyses that were conducted and documentation of how it spent money collected from the network enhancement fee.
“Our investigation seeks comprehensive records dating back to January 2017 to determine exactly what Altice Optimum knew and what they were doing to deliver the internet speeds and service they promised,” Tong said in a statement. “If our investigation finds that Optimum violated Connecticut law, we will not hesitate to hold them accountable.”
An Altice USA representative told Fierce it “shares the state’s goal of ensuring Connecticut residents and businesses receive high-quality service and have a positive customer experience.” The representative added Altice has “been investing across Connecticut” to deploy fresh fiber infrastructure and noted the state became one of the first to gain access to its symmetrical 2-gig and 5-gig service plans in September.
That said, Altice “will cooperate with state officials to provide relevant information,” the representative said.
As of the end of Q3 2022, Altice USA had a total of 1.9 million fiber passings across its territories. However, the operator did not provide a state-by-state breakout. A map provided by BroadbandNow showed Altice’s legacy footprint covers large swaths of the western half of Connecticut, including the areas around Torrington, Goshen, Litchfield, Stamford, Norwalk, Bridgeport, Milford and New Haven. However, the map indicated its fiber coverage only extended to small sections of Stamford and Norwalk.
Tong’s investigation isn’t an idle threat for Altice. In September, the Connecticut AG struck a $60 million deal with Frontier Communications to settle an investigation into allegations it engaged in misleading marketing practices related to its DSL internet. That settlement came despite the fact that Frontier has been working to build out fiber in the state. As of October, it said it already had half a million passings there and was aiming to add 300,000 more.
Given Altice’s net income fell to $85 million in Q3 2022, a prospective settlement deal the size of Frontier’s could deal a significant blow to the company.