• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, December 14, 2015

Two months ago, the New York Attorney General's office began investigating whether Verizon, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable dupe consumers by promising them high-speed broadband, but delivering service that's too slow to stream online video.

On Sunday, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman took the probe to a new level by asking New Yorkers to test their home broadband speeds and submit screenshots of the results to the state.

“New Yorkers should get the Internet speeds they pay for. Too many of us may be paying for one thing, and getting another," Schneiderman said Sunday in a statement. “By conducting these tests, consumers can uncover whether they are receiving the Internet speeds they have paid for.”

The move appears to highlight how difficult it is to obtain definitive information about broadband speed. Internet service providers tend to say that their speed estimates are accurate, at least most of the time. But consumers who have trouble streaming Netflix or Hulu have reason to question the carriers' statements.

In October, FCC senior enforcement counsel Tim Wu told the carriers that the Attorney General is "concerned" that customers aren't getting the speeds they pay for. He asked Cablevision, Verizon and Time Warner.

Wu, on leave from his job at Columbia law school, also said he was concerned about how providers handle traffic as it "interconnects" between their networks and backbone companies, like Level 3 or Cogent. He asked the providers for detailed information about their interconnection agreements, as well as documents about complaints by customers about their Internet speeds.

Last year, disputes about how to handle interconnection were responsible for slowing down Netflix traffic. Netflix ultimately agreed to pay the major carriers extra fees to interconnect directly with their networks, but called on federal regulators to intervene.