ISP failed to comply with New York’s $15 broadband law—until Ars got involved

When New York's law requiring $15 or $20 broadband plans for people with low incomes took effect last week, Optimum customer William O'Brien tried to sign up for the cheap Internet service. Since O'Brien is in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), he qualifies for one of the affordable plans that Internet service providers must offer New Yorkers who meet income eligibility requirements.

O'Brien has been paying Optimum $111.20 a month for broadband—$89.99 for the broadband service, $14 in equipment rental fees, a $6 "Network Enhancement Fee," and $1.21 in tax. He was due for a big discount under the New York Affordable Broadband Act (ABA), which says that any ISP with over 20,000 customers must offer either a $15 plan with download speeds of at least 25Mbps or a $20 plan with at least 200Mbps speeds, and that the price must include "any recurring taxes and fees such as recurring rental fees for service provider equipment required to obtain broadband service and usage fees."

Despite qualifying for a low-income plan under the law's criteria, O'Brien's request was denied by Optimum. He reached out to Ars, just like many other people who have read our articles about bad telecom customer service. Usually, these problems are fixed quickly after we reach out to an Internet provider's public relations department on the customer's behalf.

That seemed to be the way it was going, as Optimum's PR team admitted the mistake and told us that a customer relations specialist would reach out to O'Brien and get him on the right plan. But O'Brien was rejected again after that.

We followed up with Optimum's PR team, and they had to intervene a second time to make sure the company gave O'Brien what he's entitled to under the law. The company also updated its marketing materials after we pointed out that its Optimum Advantage Internet webpage still said the low-income plan wasn't available to current customers, former users who disconnected less than 60 days ago, and former customers whose accounts were "not in good standing." The New York law doesn't allow for those kinds of exceptions.

O'Brien is now on a $14.99 plan with 50Mbps download and 5Mbps upload speeds. He was previously on a 100Mbps download plan and had faster upload speeds, but from now on he'll be paying nearly $100 less a month.

Obviously, telecom customers shouldn't ever have to contact a news organization just to get a basic problem solved. But the specter of media coverage usually causes an ISP to take quick action, so it was surprising when O'Brien was rejected a second time. Here's what happened.

“We don’t have that plan”

O'Brien contacted Optimum (which used to be called Cablevision and is now owned by Altice USA) after learning about the New York law from an Ars article. "I immediately got on Optimum's website to chat with live support but they refused to comply with the act," O'Brien told us on January 15, the day the law took effect.

A transcript of O'Brien's January 15 chat with Optimum shows that the customer service agent told him, "I did check on that and according to the policy we don't have that credit offer in Optimum right now." O'Brien provided the agent a link to the Ars article, which described the New York law and mentioned that Optimum offers a low-income plan for $15.

"After careful review, I did check on that, it is not officially from Optimum and in Optimum we don't have that plan," the agent replied.

O'Brien provided Ars with documents showing that he is in SNAP and thus qualifies for the low-income plan. We provided this information to the Optimum PR department on the morning of January 17.

"We have escalated this exchange with our teams internally to ensure this issue is rectified and will be reaching out to the customer directly today to assist in getting him on the right plan," an Optimum spokesperson told us that afternoon.

A specialist from Optimum's executive customer relations squad reached out to O'Brien later on Friday. He missed the call, but they connected on Tuesday, January 21. She told O'Brien that Optimum doesn't offer the low-income plan to existing customers.

"She said their position is that they offer the required service but only for new customers and since I already have service I'm disqualified," O'Brien told us. "I told her that I'm currently on food stamps and that I used to receive the $30 a month COVID credit but this did not matter. She claimed that since Optimum offers a $15, 50Mbps service... that they are in compliance with the law."

Shortly after the call, the specialist sent O'Brien an email reiterating that he wasn't eligible, which he shared with Ars. "As discussed prior to this notification, Optimum offers a low-income service for $15.00. However, we were unable to change the account to that service because it is an active account with the service," she wrote.

Second try

We contacted Optimum's PR team again after getting this update from O'Brien. On Tuesday evening, the specialist from executive customer relations emailed O'Brien to say, "The matter was reviewed, and I was advised that I could upgrade the account."

After another conversation with the specialist on Wednesday, O'Brien had the $15 plan. O'Brien told us that he "asked why I had to fight tooth and nail for this" and why he had to contact a news organization to get it resolved. "I claimed that it's almost like no one there has read the legislation, and it was complete silence," he told us.

On Wednesday this week, the Optimum spokesperson told us that "it seems that there has been some confusion among our care teams on the implementation of the ABA over the last week and how it should be correctly applied to our existing low-cost offers."

Optimum has offered its low-cost plan for several years, with the previously mentioned restrictions that limit it to new customers. The plan website wasn't updated in time for the New York law, but now says that "new and existing residential Internet customers in New York" qualify. The new-customer restriction still applies elsewhere.