Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR) and Frontier Communications are suing each other in Connecticut, where both companies are headquartered, over false advertising claims.
According to a Hartford Business report, Charter last week filed a countersuit against Frontier alleging that material on Frontier's website contains false boasts about Frontier's service and false claims about Charter's service. The countersuit comes after Frontier last month filed suit against Charter over ads running in California and Texas that contain incorrect statements about Frontier's pricing and data speeds, which Frontier claims is causing it to "lose customers and suffer economic harm," according to the report.
Frontier has recently begun integrating the wireline assets in California, Florida and Texas it purchased from Verizon, and has had a relatively rough go of it so far.
In a statement provided to Hartford Business, Frontier said that "Charter's recent ad campaign is false and misleading and does not accurately portray the competitive, high-quality products and services that we provide our customers."
Charter is also coming off a recent acquisition and is now getting to work on integrating Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. Some analysts have predicted the integration could cause some hiccups for Charter and could result in worse customer service, at least in the near term.
The legal dispute over ads between Charter and Frontier comes as Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) are embroiled in a similar dustup. Last month, the National Advertising Review Board urged Verizon to take down potentially misleading ads about its FiOS internet and TV services after Comcast complained.
Of course, Verizon's current kerfuffle with Comcast comes after Verizon last year finally settled a long and bitter battle with Cablevision over ads from both parties that bashed each other's internet speeds.
For more:
- read this Hartford Business article
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