AT&T Loses First Legal Battle Against Verizon 214
FutureDomain writes "A federal judge in Atlanta has declined a restraining order from AT&T that would have prevented Verizon from running ads that compared their 3G coverage to AT&T's. AT&T felt that Verizon's ads 'mislead consumers into thinking that AT&T doesn't offer wireless service in large portions of the country, which is clearly not the case.' Verizon argued that the ads clearly indicated that the maps were only of 3G coverage, and that AT&T is only suing because it doesn't want to face the truth about its network."
Re:Surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
Verizon's EVDO CDMA '3G' network is much slower than the HSDPA GSM '3G' that ATT has.
Becides Edge is in the '3G' spec, so it should be '3G' too.
The real problem is that '3G' is 100% meaningless. We should get maximum working bandwidths, then compare them.
And I really hate Verizon, and dislike ATT. I use T-Mobile. They have worse coverage, but so much better customer service!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bandwidths#Mobile_telephone_interfaces [wikipedia.org]
EVDO revA is what Verizon is advertizing. HSDPA is what ATT has. Edge is also technically in the '3G' spec, and well should be shown in the Verizon ads. But honestly 3G doesn't mean shit.
Re:Surprised? (Score:4, Interesting)
>>>Verizon's EVDO CDMA '3G' network is much slower than the HSDPA GSM '3G' that ATT has
Upon what data do you draw this conclusion? (just curious)
Actually, I feel for them. (Score:3, Interesting)
I've personally fallen for a similar scam (or so I felt) when I bought a digital camera. The camera included a "lithium digital camera battery" but failed to mention that it was a throw-away, non-rechargeable battery. When I got it home and opened it, I was exasperated to read the documentation and find that the rechargeable batteries are "lithium-ion" and I'm expected to buy them separately – and to add insult to injury, at inflated prices. Yeah, I made an uninformed decision when I bought the camera, but I felt that Kodak (yes, I'll name names) deliberately tried to leave it confusing so that people would do exactly as I did.
Truth in advertising, IMHO, would be served if Verizon was required to put a tagline to the effect that "Note: Normal cellular calling coverage may extend outside the 3G-covered area". A lot of normal users don't know the difference between "3G" and regular talk coverage any more than I knew the difference between "lithium" and "lithium-ion" batteries.
Re:Misleading Ads Against the Rules? (Score:4, Interesting)
Otherwise they would sell fully unlimited packages, . . . . when what they really meant was 400minutes
They already do that with data. Virtually every cell carrier has unlimited* data.
* Not to exceed 5GB per month.
It'd be like advertising health salt-free* potato chips and everyone just accepting it without griping. Cell phone advertisers and companies these days are border line con-men.
* Excepting salt added for flavor.
Recall Pizza Hut vs. Papa John's (Score:3, Interesting)
Pizza Hut sued Papa John's because Papa John's was claiming "better ingredients, better pizza." Pizza Hut lost. These lawsuits are a stupid waste of courts' time--and of taxpayer money.
Maybe I'll boycott AT&T for awhile . . ..
Re:Maps (Score:3, Interesting)
Might not be AT&T's fault... my office used to have solid Verizon coverage but no AT&T reception. If I stepped outside I had full 3G on my iPhone. Anywhere indoors, I had no service.
It turned out they were using Verizon repeaters in the building. They removed them one day and ever since, AT&T users have had full coverage inside.
Re:Surprised? (Score:3, Interesting)
I was a little shocked to find out that slashdot's main page, a "mostly text" page, is anywhere between 500k-950k on my blackberry.