An ad from Verizon seen this past weekend on an NFL game broadcast (see video) shows the company’s in-house engineers climbing towers while “building America’s first 5G network.” The ad is entitled: “’First to Tomorrow. First to 5G.” Unfortunately for Verizon, tower climbers watch football.
“Watching this, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” John Paleski, owner and founder of Subcarrier Communications told Inside Towers. “The ad claims that it is Verizon’s very own engineers that climb the towers, install and maintain the equipment.”
One of the ads features Kevin Austin, a Verizon engineer and shows him climbing an ice-covered tower. Austin’s voiceover says “… we service this tower all winter long. We check it constantly to make sure there are no interruptions in service. I’m proud that we are building the nation’s first 5G network.” Another version of the ad features Nicki Palmer, also tagged as a Verizon engineer, wearing her industry standard PPE. She announces “we will be the first to upgrade the towers … being a Verizon engineer means doing things right.”
“There’s only one problem with these commercials, they are not true,” Paleski said.
Paleski said he has been doing Verizon installation and tower work since they were NYNEX Mobile in 1986. “During these 32 years, the tower industry has lost so many good and hard working men and women due to injury and death. We face these challenges on a daily basis. Verizon, on the other hand, has faced none of these challenges; no injuries, no deaths. They do no such work as claimed in their commercials. They hire professional tower workers to do it instead!”
The commercial drew additional comments on Subcarrier’s social media site:
- “Yeah like when’s the last time you’ve seen an Engineer carry a rope up a 400 ft guyed tower to change out a radio or antenna for Ericsson warranty?”
- “Lol. Us tower dawgs are so badass that they just wanna be like us. They gotta fake it to make it.”
- “Just start calling yourself an engineer and you can feel better.”
One commentator was just grateful for the image. “At least it’s recognized that we exist,” they posted. Watch the full video here. Comments? editor@insidetowers.com
By Jim Fryer, Managing Editor, Inside Towers
September 19, 2018
