When Charter Communications acquired Time Warner Cable in May 2016, federal and New York regulators required it to expand broadband to underserved areas. In June 2018, the New York Public Service Commission (NYPSC) fined Charter $2 million after finding that the company had failed to meet its obligation to deploy service to at least 145,000 unserved or underserved residential units over four years. An audit concluded that Charter had falsely reported at least 14,000 previously served addresses as new deployments. The commission described the conduct as an attempt to evade its merger commitments, rather than a simple accounting error.
On July 27, 2018, the NYPSC voted to reverse its approval of the acquisition and ordered Charter to prepare to divest its New York cable operations, which served roughly 2 million customers. The company threatened litigation and received deadline extensions, avoiding an immediate forced exit. In April 2019, Charter agreed to revised conditions: it had to complete 145,000 new premises by September 30, 2021, with milestone requirements and no credit for New York City deployments, and contribute $12 million to broadband-expansion projects. The episode illustrated how merger benefits promised to regulators could be undermined by company-reported data and produced continuing oversight rather than a breakup.
