If you watched the Super Bowl yesterday (great game by the way), and specifically the commercials, you may have witnessed a brewing competitive battle for home broadband, and specifically cable broadband.
Both Verizon and T-Mobile featured ads (to the tune of $7 million a piece) for their fixed wireless service which aims to take on cable’s home broadband dominance in larger markets.
Verizon’s ad rekindled the dark comedy movie, the Cable Guy, featuring comedian Jim Carey. That movie played on the poor service reputation of the cable industry.
Ditch expensive, poor service riddled cable broadband for the shiny new 5G fixed wireless service, 5G Home, the ad pushed. I’m curious what the total budget for that ad was (including the $7 million placement fee). My suspicion is Jim Carey didn’t come cheap.
T-Mobile got on the bandwagon too, in true T-Mobile style, with an “Internet with no BS’ commercial. While not calling out cable broadband specifically, the commercial hits on perceptions of cable broadband – raising prices and fees, and poor service.
It’s game on and both ads highlight the high stakes competitive battle this is now underway. At the end of 4Q21, T-Mobile reported 646K fixed wireless customers, while Verizon reported adding 78K fixed wireless customers in 4Q21 alone.
Here’s the reality. T-Mobile and Verizon will not offer real competition to cable in suburban markets unless they develop more speed and reliability. I have used TMobile’s home internet, as well as, Cox’s. T-Mobile offers 1/3 the DL speed that Cox delivers for the same money. With T-Mobile, I generally got DL speeds anywhere between 35 and 55 Mbps, whereas, Cox delivers 150 Mbps for the same money.
You probably don’t have the 5G home internet because T-Mobile promises a 100mbps DL at least with their 2.5 ultra capacity 5G. It also depends on how far you are from the closest cell site to you. I live in the city and get an average of 470mbps which is better than the 100/100 that I had from cable.
Sure would be nice if these telecoms would focus more on getting broadband to everyone (**cough**RuralAmerica**cough**) and less on being the best / putting each other out of business.
Yes but it also depends heavily on the area. I’m also in a suburban area and I’m getting 300mbps DL with TMobile for half the price I was paying for 100Mbps with Comcast (no contract)