Is that a bird or a plane in the sky? It’s John Legere sending a message to Verizon Wireless

By Robert Nazarian Published October 26, 2015

It was about two months ago that John Legere promised to send a clear message to one lucky rival carrier regarding overage charges. You know, those charges you get when you go over your caps for data, calls, or minutes.

Legere asked fans to help him decide how to send this message by voting via Twitter. He gave them a choice of either a skyline takeover, skywriting, or a monster overage counter. The votes have been tabulated, and skywriting was the clear winner. This method involves a plane flying over the headquarters of either AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint to skywrite a message.

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Now it was just a matter of deciding which carrier’s HQ to fly over. Naturally Legere picked the largest, which is Verizon Wireless. Of course, it can’t be a shock to anyone that Legere went along for the ride to Tweet and take a few pictures. The mission took place earlier today.

HEY @verizon! LOOK UP!! NOW DO WHAT CUSTOMERS WANT!! #AbolishOverages pic.twitter.com/ghg4xsx9kU

— John Legere (@JohnLegere) October 26, 2015

The message is a little hard to make out, but it basically tells Verizon to abolish overages.

This all started about a year ago when Legere and T-Mobile stopped overage charges for good. Legere also started a Change.org petition to get the rest of the carriers to do the same. Two months ago, when Legere announced his intentions for this stunt, the petition had about 250,000 signatures. Today it has reached over 330,000.

Verizon wasn’t about to watch Legere get all the attention. Vice President of Communications at Verizon Wireless Jeffrey Nelson fought back via Twitter. He said “You probably need to use the Verizon network if you want to send a pic of your artwork #NoTMoSignalHere.” Apparently there isn’t any T-Mobile coverage around the Verizon headquarters in Basking Ridge, NJ.

Shortly after, Nelson said, “That time you found yet another form of communicating more reliable than the TMobile network. #SmokeSignals #Skywriting #PonyExpress.”

Nelson didn’t stop there as he had more witty things to say …

And #Poof @JohnLegere is gone. Unfortunately, so is your TMo connection. #BetterMatters

— Jeff Nelson 🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈 (@JNels) October 26, 2015

.@JohnLegere Hey John! Do what customers beg for: a decent network! #PonyExpress #Skywriting #TMo https://t.co/0c3oWYL4an

— Jeff Nelson 🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈 (@JNels) October 26, 2015

And Verizon’s Twitter account also chimed in…

https://twitter.com/verizon/status/658668022916382721

Will Legere’s tactics end overage charges for good? Probably not, at least for now, but it makes for great water cooler talk. Legere promised to do this with only one of the carrier’s headquarters, but you never know … he might wake up tomorrow morning and decide to do the same with AT&T and Sprint.

Robert Nazarian

Former Contributor

Robert Nazarian became a technology enthusiast when his parents bought him a Radio Shack TRS-80 Color. Now his biggest…

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