T-Mobile takes a swing at Verizon (and Disney+) and John Legere hits back at AT&T on Twitter
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T-Mobile was in the spotlight last week with its first "Un-carrier" moves of a new era, but while it's definitely nice to hear Magenta is planning a nationwide 5G network rollout by the end of the year, the other two big November 7 announcements were met with mixed reactions by both hardcore fans and haters online.
Interestingly, CEO John Legere seems to insist on keeping the controversy alive several days after AT&T condemned T-Mo's latest "marketing stunts", while the "Un-carrier's" official Twitter account handler is trying to capitalize on the incredible popularity of Disney+, throwing an amusing but somewhat unnecessary jab at arch-rival Verizon.
This would mean a lot more coming from a company that didn’t try to fool America with 5Ge. https://t.co/qGMt7e8HS0
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) November 13, 2019
Starting with Legere's own tweet, we have to point out we're not at all surprised the outspoken CEO is not willing to just let AT&T's recent attack slide. That's not how this man rolls, and in fact, we kind of expected him to hit back sooner and harder at a carrier he likes to label as Verizon's trusty partner in a Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels-inspired "Dumb and Dumber" duo. After all, this is the guy that gave the greenlight to a nationwide ad campaign lambasting Verizon verHIDEzon for charging special 5G fees and hiding its advanced network coverage.
Instead of concocting a similarly elaborate operation against the nation's second-largest wireless service provider, John Legere simply highlighted on his Twitter feed last night that AT&T's comments would "mean a lot more coming from a company that didn't try to fool America with 5Ge." For those who don't (want to) remember, AT&T used (and in fact still uses to this day) a highly misleading branding for its LTE Advanced network that everyone from T-Mobile to Verizon to Sprint promptly criticized a while back.
We'll give this friendship a year https://t.co/7Een2yEcSkpic.twitter.com/yuPcW0F4ra
— T-Mobile (@TMobile) November 13, 2019
Of course, it's certainly fair to emphasize AT&T's hypocrisy when talking about "marketing stunts", but at the same time, we'd have loved to hear Legere's thoughts on the substance of his rival's accusations. After all, AT&T is not wrong to point out T-Mobile's recent promises to first responders come with quite a lot of conditions and strings attached.
As far as T-Mobile's latest dig at Verizon is concerned, we can't help but feel its timing is a little unfortunate. The meme itself is funny and right on the money, highlighting Big Red's customers will need to start paying for their Disney+ subscriptions one year down the line. For the time being, though, everyone appears to love this hot new streaming platform and Verizon is offering free access to it. Nothing wrong with that, even though the theoretical value of T-Mo's Netflix freebie is indeed greater.
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