Last week we noted that Cablevision had sued Verizon for FiOS ads highlighting that Cablevision wasn't delivering the speeds users are paying for. According to FCC data from last August, Cablevision delivered just 50% of advertised speed during peak periods, a fact Verizon quickly made use of in FiOS marketing. However, last week the FCC updated their data to show that Cablevision had made significant improvements, and now delivered 90% of advertised speeds during peak hours. Cablevision quickly jumped on the news to sue Verizon for false advertising, since technically the 50% ads were no longer true.

Responding to the lawsuit, Verizon has sent Broadband Reports a legal filing (pdf) saying they'll modify their ads slightly to reflect the statistical change -- but will continue with ads based on the data. The same study found that Verizon delivered 104% of advertised speeds during peak hours. Verizon has a history of over-provisioning tiers to deliver users more speed than they expected, something we noted Cablevision quietly started doing after the FCC report.

In addition to the ads using outdated statistics, Cablevision's lawsuit insists that commercials like this one overstate the nature of the issue. One Verizon ad features a user frustrated in their attempt to watch streaming content on Cablevision, with a message stating "connection interrupted." Verizon, as you might expect, insists they're in the right, and that Cablevision has no room to complain.

"The best that Cablevision can claim is that it is not misrepresenting its broadband speeds quite as much today as in the past," a Verizon spokesman insists. "To try to compete with Verizon's state-of-the-art FiOS services, Cablevision has concealed its inferior broadband performance from consumers for years, and continues to do so today."

Unmentioned by Verizon is the fact that their DSL service, still offered in 50% of their markets, likely doesn't fare much better than Cablevision's service at peak time (See August FCC chart). Still, regardless of who wins this legal and PR feud, users in FiOS/Cablevision markets are fortunate in that they're at least seeing something vaguely resembling competition in a U.S. broadband market that generally lacks it.