T-Mobile Bouncing Ball Ad Premiers During NFL Playoffs

Sprint and T-Mobile are hyping progress they're making on their networks versus AT&T and especially Verizon. T-Mobile premiered a TV ad during the NFL playoffs Sunday. In a take-off on Verizon’s colored balls ad, the piece shows five red Verizon balls headed down a ramp followed by dozens of magenta T-Mobile balls. “In the last two years, Verizon only added LTE coverage for 5 million people,” a female voice exclaims. “T-Mobile, they added 100 million.” A male voice chimes in: “Verizon didn’t tell you that, did they?” Without mentioning T-Mobile’s 700 MHz buys, the ad says the carrier’s in-building coverage is four times better than in the past. “Verizon is better at some things," T-Mobile CEO John Legere tweeted Sunday. "Like keeping secrets. It's time to spill the balls, once and for all.” Verizon also broadcast its own version of its bouncing balls ad repeatedly during the playoff games. Meanwhile, Sprint, which unveils earnings Tuesday (see 1601220047), said in a news release Monday that it has doubled its number of LTE Plus markets. Sprint also said a new report by Nielsen Mobile Performance said Sprint had the fastest LTE download speeds of the four national carriers. “Over 75 million downloads, collected from real consumers in cities across the country, show that Sprint wins where it matters -- the actual customer experience,” said CEO Marcelo Claure. “Our customers are experiencing a network that’s faster than the competition, and there’s never been a better time to give Sprint a try.”