Honestly, we absolutely love it when a company ignores its instincts along with the onslaught of advice from its PR firm and talks, err, smack. Despite what some flacks may tell you, people want to hear it like it is and sometimes PR-ified nonsense does more harm than good. Then again, sometimes the opposite is true. Like this time, for instance. Verizon has publicly responded to Cablevision’s new $99 Optimum Ultra 101Mbps residential Internet service in much the same manner a preteen with a hand-me-down Sega Genesis would respond to one touting a brand new Xbox 360. If you’d like to forgo reading Verizon’s response, here are the key points found within:
- Cablevision’s network is old.
- Delivering 101Mbps is easy.
- If a few people in the same neighborhood are heavy Ultra users, it will rip a hole in the space time continuum
- People don’t want fast Internet service
- Verizon can offer speeds waaaaaaay faster than 101Mbps — we just don’t want to
- Optimum Ultra’s upstream is 15Mbps and we offer 20Mbps [in the $150/month package]
- Most servers you hit on the Internet are way slower than 100 Mbps
- Cablevision just wants bragging rights
- Nanny nanny poo poo
While there is a valid point or two buried deep within the ‘we’re better but we choose not to be’ cries, the bottom line is that this was the wrong approach to take. Wrong. Verizon first contends that there is no demand for faster Internet service in the home, then concludes with the canned “the future is gonna be faaaaaast” claim. Well, Verizon, the future isn’t going to be fast unless service providers take incremental steps toward making it so.
