In the world of US networks and carriers, AT&T and Verizon are constantly battling it out for the top spot, while T-Mobile and Sprint seem obsessed with getting third-place. For a long time, this was the way things panned out among the Big Four, but a few years ago, T-Mobile’s upstart CEO, John Legere, changed the way these carriers, carried themselves. Now, it’s common place to see Mr Legere calling AT&T and Verizon “Dumb and Dumber” and generally trying to make Sprint look stupid. Verizon had no choice but to get in on the act as well, and most recently they tried to visualize data from RootMetrics that worked in their favor using balls, needless to say their CDMA rival, Sprint, did not fare well in this comparison. Now, Sprint is using the same technique to fight back, with different data, but the same type of balls.
The Verizon ad, which appeared a few weeks ago now, basically claimed their network was the top dog, using data from RootMetrics – from the 1st Half of 2015 that is – which put Verizon as Number 1 in calls, data, reliability and speed. Using a third-party, independent firm like RootMetrics is nothing new to these guys, and if you haven’t seen the ad that Sprint has gotten so worked up about, you can watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=785YQKmgiTo
Now, Sprint has come out with a new ad of their own, using the same style of balls to get their point across, but they’ve skewed the data a little bit. While they claim that their network is quicker for half the price, it seems Sprint is only talking about their “LTE Plus Network” and the data comes from Nielsen’s NMP data from October to December of last year. Granted, Sprint’s data used in their ad appears to be a little more up-to-date than Verizon’s, but it appears as though Sprint has chosen to go with a very specific portion of their network to make such a claim and doesn’t take into account, or even mention coverage details. The ad is below for those interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KZTIgFzGIc
Sprint is using this opportunity to announce that they’re giving new customers 50% off their bills for a limited time if they switch, so there’s definitely a motive here beyond throwing shade at Verizon. What this really comes down to is a classic case of he said/he said by using two different sets of data from different periods and different providers. Regardless, it is a little amusing to see such massive corporations go at it like this.