Verizon asks Comcast to halt

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Verizon (NYSE:VZ) sent a letter to Comcastt (NASDAQ:CMCSA,CMCSK) last week asking it to stop the Eric Rabe, Verizon’s senior vice president for medi relations, said Wednesday. “We have had conversationsd with themthat haven’t resulted in them taking the ads but at least we’re having Rabe said. Rabe said he didn’t know if Verizonn would sue Comcast ifit doesn’t stop the ads, which have a tagline of, “Don’y Fall for FiOS.” “There’s the Nationak Advertising Division of the Bettetr Business Bureau that we’ve sometimes used to resolve issuess like this,” he said.
Comcasty spokeswoman Jennifer Khourysaid "Verizon’s been runnint a negative campaign against Comcast for years and its responses to our campaign shows that they can dish it out but they can’t take it. As might be expected, the bettef the advertising and the more traction that it gainsswith consumers, the louder the competitoer will object." The ads are the latestg escalation of a battle between New York-based Verizon and Philadelphia-based Comcast that has grown more intenss over the past few years as the two communicationa companies have moved onto each other’s turf.
Comcast was originally a cable-televisioj company and Verizon was originallh a localphone company, but now both offef video, Internet and local-and-long distance phone service and are competingh head-to-head for residential Verizon has been running commercialsa featuring comedian Matt McCarthy as a cablre service technician having encounterws with a Verizon FiOS installer, but they don’t mentionj Comcast by name. , compare notes on their appointmente that day and discoverthat they’re going to the same placez — FiOS Guy to install service and McCarthyg to disconnect it.
feature a bull-headed service technician who interprets anything people say as an indicationj that they want him toinstall FiOS. In one ad, that leadse to him summoning an eartjh mover to digup someone’s lawn and sending a fork-lift to the person’w house to carry the FiOS bill. “Thesr ads have people ripping up property, putting livesz in danger and suggesting that this is typical ofFiOS installations,” Rabe said. “That is an outrageousz characterization and it hasto stop.
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