AT&T complains about ad that factually presents U-Verse bandwidth pinch

AT&T Complains About Ads Mocking U-Verse Capacity Crunch [Broadband Reports]

AT&T is complaining about a Time Warner Cable television ad that points out problems with the architecture of AT&T's U-Verse product. The ad, which illustrates the limited capacity of U-Verse to deliver both HD television and Internet over twisted pair copper, is the subject of a complaint filed by AT&T with the National Advertising Division of the Better Business Bureau. In the ad, a football player representing HD channels tackles a smaller player representing Internet speeds. Because the U-Verse product delivers both over limited bandwidth twisted pair, the ad attempts to demonstrate that "those high def TV signals can make mincemeat out of your Internet service - no wonder your Internet can slow down."

Broadband Reports indicates that despite AT&T's complaint about the ad, what Time Warner Cable says about U-Verse is true. The Internet speeds delivered by U-Verse are dependent upon the distance a customer lives from the AT&T equipment that delivers the product. The digital signals degrade as they travel over AT&T's twisted pair copper wire, limiting the distance that the product can be reliably transmitted and the product's Internet speeds. That problem is compounded because U-Verse uses a portion of its already limited bandwidth to transmit the video portion of the product via Internet protocol.

So, regardless of whether AT&T likes it or not, Time Warner Cable's ad is, in my opinion, factually correct.

Comments

[Mark]

You can't complain when the facts are solid. That is one of the reasons why AT&T and Verizon are butting heads with commercials over coverage maps. While it is true that AT&T's 3G is faster, Verizon's 3G is nationwide, not just in select few places. But let me get back on track.

When I lived in Cincinnati, I dumped Cincinnati Bell for Time Warner's VoIP service. For months afterwords, I received "updates" from Cincinnati Bell on each and every system outage that Time Warner's VoIP service had in my area. It got so bad that I threatened to file a former complaint of harassment if they did not stop sending me "updates" on my phone provider's system outages. The "updates" stopped coming.

The moral of the story: competition (especially in this economy) is fierce, brutal, and cutthroat. As soon as your competition sees a weakness in your solution or product, they will jump on it and relentlessly wage war on that weakness in order to exploit it and attract your customers. The trick is how to balance that out so that you come out smelling like roses, and not driving potential customers away because you look like a bully.