Back in October, Comcast created in-house a funny TV spot targeting T-Mobile Home Internet.
The resulting 30-second commercial , titled “Vampires,” showcased a family driven into group therapy by (who else?) the patriarch's decision to get T-Mobile fixed-wireless-access home internet. The spot implies that FWA network capacity issues have driven the family into a vampiric life of doing everything from midnight until dawn, when T-Mobile’s wireless capacity frees up a little.
With tree-huggers set to celebrate Arbor Day on Friday — and Comcast perhaps looking to make itself laugh after once again reporting flatlined quarterly broadband additions on Thursday — the cable company is at it again.
In ”Trees,“ a hapless family man (is there any other kind?) is in couples therapy, explaining how he and his wife moved to the forest for their precious daughter, Sophie … and everything was apparently going well, until the wife explains, he decided to get T-Mobile Home Internet.
Cut to a scene in which young Sophie is looking out her bedroom window, shocked by workers cutting down all the trees in her backyard. Her scream is met by the father's narration, who explains, ”I was merely trying to improve our signal, so some of the trees had to go.“ This is, of course, an obvious dig at the obstructive limitations of FWA technology.
Cut back to the therapist’s office: “Let’s pretend for a second that you didn't let down your entire family. What would that reality look like?” the man is asked.
“Well, I guess I would have gotten us Xfinity, and we'd have a better view,” he replies.
Cut to the man’s smartphone, which shows a photo of stump-laden Lorax-scape, a cell tower in the background.
At the time this sentence was being typed, T-Mobile was 75 minutes away from reporting its first-quarter earnings. The wireless company added 2 million 5G Home Internet customers last year, and its significant price advantage is undoubtedly cutting into cable broadband customer expansion, at least a little.
Notably, however, T-Mobile's FWA customer expansion slowed a bit in the fourth quarter, with the wireless company perhaps starting to bump its head on a ceiling of network capacity issues and other FWA tech limitations. We'll know more at 4:30 p.m. ET when T-Mobile reports earnings.
Also read: T-Mobile FWA Limitations Exposed in New Report
For their part, cable operators including Comcast have said all along that it's because of these limitations that they've never been worried about FWA.
But just in case, Comcast, in addition to running funny national TV ads, also assembled this landing page to remind its customers what those FWA limitations are.
But don’t worry, they're not worried.
