Battle of the Broadband

The battle for broadband supremacy between Time Warner and Verizon has led to an escalating advertising war. Now, the companies are accusing each other of trying to mislead consumers.

If you live in or around New York, you have probably seen the Verizon Fios TV commercials featuring a technician who wows a little boy while installing his family's new Verizon fiber-optic broadband service.

"The light is so clean its plus-20 db hot!" the tech exclaims. The boy's eyes widen as glowing bands of light pour out of the Verizon truck. "It's true Q.A.M.!" the tech says.

In a later ad, the boy explains the new service to his father.

"Talking to the cable guy, pal?" the dad asks his boy.

"Actually," the boy responds, "he's the Verizon Fios tech. He brings fiber optics right to your door on three different spectrums of light!"

"You got your 1310, your 1490, and your 1550!" the boy says, adding, "You should see his truck!"

Verizon Fios is the telecommunications giant's entry into the fiber-optic broadband market, intended to compete against cable rivals like Time Warner's Roadrunner internet service.

The ads have left many consumers scratching their heads at the bewildering array of terminology. For those of you keeping score at home, here's a primer: 1310, 1490, and 1550 refer to the wavelengths on which incoming and outgoing data travel across the network. Plus-20 db hot refers to the signal strength in decibels. And Q.A.M., or "quadrature amplitude modulation," refers to the format that delivers the cable signal. "True Q.A.M." presumably means, "as good a signal as cable."

Jim Smith, a Verizon spokesman, acknowledged that Verizon's "plus 20 DB hot" commercials may befuddle some customers.

"We don't really expect consumers to understand all of that." Smith told Portfolio.com. "It's a little bit of razzle-dazzle."

Now, Time Warner Cable has struck back with a cheeky ad aimed at taking Verizon down a notch.

A Verizon-esque technician arrives at a suburban house and asks whether its owner has heard about the fiber.

The man looks down at his cereal and says: "Yeah, I've got my fiber taken care of."

The Fios technician, with light beams flowing out of his body like the paranormal spirits shooting out of 55 Central Park West in Ghostbusters, responds, "No, Verizon's kind of fiber!"

But the would-be customer is not impressed: "Time Warner cable has been using fiber optics for ten years, welcome to the party!"

And then, he delivers the punch line. "Hey, you're looking a little bunched up," he says as he hands the Fios technician a bowl of cereal.

Verizon's Smith said the Time Warner ad is designed "with the intent to deceive the consumer."

"Time Warner Cable does not deliver fiber optics to your door," Smith said, though he acknowledged that Time Warner uses fiber optics in their network backbone. "This is fun. They're saying, 'Let's poke at each other and dupe the consumer.' But the real losers are the consumers, who are getting fooled."

"That's an interesting interpretation," Time Warner Cable spokesman Mark Harrad said.

"People don't really care about fiber-schmiber," Harrad said. "What they care about is the service. We don't feel that Verizon is doing anything that we haven't been doing for the last ten years."

Referring to Verizon's ads, Harrad said, "Their new service sounds new and improved, but marketers do that all the time when there is nothing new under the hood."

Stay tuned.

Sam Gustin