Verizon Communications’ logo change has provided T-Mobile CEO John Legere with some fresh fodder in his ongoing public relations battle against the nation’s No. 1 carrier. Within hours of the new logo’s launch, Legere took to Twitter to “check the box” by lambasting Verizon. He used Verizon’s checkmark theme to list ways that he thinks Verizon overcharges customers.
Legere listed four Verizon Wireless policies that he sees as anti-consumer: data overage penalties, a lack of early upgrade options, no rollover data and international roaming fees. Legere sandwiched the list between two subjective bullet points in his caustic tweet, which started and ended with: Screws over customers.
Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure jumped on Legere’s bandwagon, tweeting that “Finally, @JohnLegere wrote something that makes sense.” The remark may have been an olive branch of sorts, as the CEOs were engaged in a bitter war of words this summer on social media.
All tweeting aside, T-Mobile US is clearly having a big impact on Verizon Wireless and its pricing. T-Mobile US was one of the first to abolish service contracts for subscribers, a move that has now been copied to some extent by all the nationwide carriers. Verizon Wireless was the last to give in; last month the carrier finally moved away from two-year contracts in favor of alternate device payment options.
“Historically AT&T and Verizon have been able to sit it out and say ‘Silly T-Mobile; we don’t compete on price, we compete on network quality,'” said analyst Derek Kerton of The Kerton Group. Wi-Fi is changing that, he said, because more and more mobile data use occurs on Wi-Fi networks, and the customer experience here is largely unrelated to their choice of wireless carrier. Kerton said that T-Mobile US and Sprint have also made significant network improvements.
“Service from them is now fairly competitive in terms of quality,” Kerton said. “J.D. Power will show you that Verizon is still the best, but they’re all kind within striking range of each other. So with that price becomes a lot more important and finally this year we’re seeing AT&T and Verizon reluctantly get pulled into this price and service competitive space.”
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