A 90-year-old California man spent $10,000 on ads in the Wall Street Journal to complain about his AT&T internet service, KTVU reports.
“It’s money well spent,” Aaron M. Epstein said, explaining that he’s a longtime customer of the communication company but has experienced significant lags in internet speeds in recent years.
“For the last five years, as soon as they started introducing streaming like Roku and movies on TV, my internet service, although I was paying for 3.5 Mbps., sometimes was only up to 1.5 Mbps. So, watching a movie through Roku was slideshows,” Epstein told the outlet.
Epstein ran one ad in Dallas, Texas, where AT&T is headquartered, and one in New York City.
Epstein’s messages urge the company to provide better service to his neighborhood of North Hollywood, Calif., where many people work in the creative industry and rely on a good internet connection, he said.’
In the ads, titled “Open Letter to Mr. John T. Stankey CEO AT&T,” Epstein argues AT&T is falling behind its competitors.
“Although AT&T is advertising speeds up to 100 MBS for other neighborhoods, the fastest now available to us from ATT is only 3 MBS,” he wrote. “Your competitors now have speeds of over 200 MBS.”
Epstein posed the question of why the company is treating residents of North Hollywood “so shabbily,” and signed the message, “Aaron M. Epstein, an AT&T Customer since 1960.”
After the ads ran on the morning of Feb. 3, a spokesperson for AT&T’s president contacted Epstein to get more information and evaluate his issue.
“I’m waiting patiently to see what they can do,” Epstein said.