• by P.J. Bednarski  @pjbtweet, February 27, 2020

T-Mobile, which has gone from aiming slingshot attacks on Verizon to lobbing grenades, has upped the firepower once again.

A T-Mobile-engineered parody blog rechristens Verizon as Verwhyzon, claiming, "Our 5G only works on a few sidewalks in a few cities across America. But we’re still gonna charge our customers absolutely everywhere more for it. Why? Because we can. That’s #5GBilledRight.”
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“Yes, Verwhyzon is just a joke, but so is the way Verizon treats customers!” notes a blog from Neville Ray, T-Mobile’s chief technology officer.

“Verizon has been running non-stop ads talking about 5G ‘from Midtown Manhattan to Downtown Denver,’" Ray coninues. But in reality, they have almost no 5G anywhere in between … and even in those cities, their 5G is only available in very limited outdoor areas, literally covering only a few blocks here and there. It’s irresponsible, and we need to keep calling this out.”

He continues,  “And I gotta tell you… I just LOVE calling them out on their BS.”

It’s almost surprising Ray’s’ not bored by it. Attacking Verizon and AT&T is as much a part of the T-Mobile environment as its distinctive magenta corporate color scheme -- and every new attack seems to build on previous nastiness.

Last September, T-Mobile plastered billboards and banners around New York as Verizon was launching its 5G service there, mimicking the Verizon typeface and renaming the company VerHIDEzon because Verizon didn’t want to provide a coverage map that T-Mobile said would make it clear just how limited its 5G coverage is.

The real Verizon seems to roll with the punches, though there have been  a lot of punches, and no doubt more in the future now that the T-Mobile/Sprint merger has been approved.

Kevin King, the director of communications for Verizon, replying to CNet, said Ray "spends a lot of time and energy focused on Verizon's network. . . Perhaps he should pay better attention to his own 5G network. It can't even match the performance of our 4G LTE network.”

There’s a technical underpinning to T-Mobile’s attacks. Verizon is using millimeter-wave spectrum for its 5G launch, which is fast, but can only travel short distances and doesn’t do particularly well when its signal is obstructed by buildings or trees. T-Mobile is available widely across almost all of the United States. It has a wider range but a weaker speed.

“They’ve painted themselves into a technology corner with a 5G strategy focused on millimeter wave,”  Ray wrote. “They bet on the wrong horse, and now they’re trying to advertise their way out of it.”