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Verizon Asks Court To Affirm 'Most Reliable' Claim
suraj.sun writes "Verizon has asked a court to affirm its claim to be 'America's Most Reliable 3G Network.' From the article, 'Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon and Vodafone Group PLC, asked a US court for a judgment that its advertising claims to be "America's Most Reliable 3G Network" were truthful, which rival AT&T called "misleading" on Monday. In papers filed in US District Court in Manhattan, Verizon said assertions on July 1 by AT&T Mobility LLC, a unit of AT&T, that its advertising was false could not be supported. AT&T, which has its principal business in Atlanta, had filed the challenge with the National Advertising Division of the Council for Better Business Bureaus. Verizon Wireless said its claims of having "America's Most Reliable 3G Network" and "America's Best 3G Network" and "America's Most Reliable Wireless Network" are "truthful, accurate and substantiated" and do not violate the trademark law known as the Lanham Act. It said that AT&T's challenge "relies on the incorrect premise that speed is an essential element of the standard for measuring network reliability.'" I can only hope that at some future date a court will decide which light beer truly is the best tasting.
"which rival AT&T called 'misleading'"
I certainly hope AT&T isn't claiming it is the most reliable 3G network, because that wouldn't just be misleading - it would be lying.
I can see their point though; in some areas of the country, I know Verizon is clearly not the most reliable network. Their claim is misleading, but I find it funny that of all companies AT&T decided to get into all this.
When I had ATT I would talk to my GF everytime I'd get home. We both had Cingular, which turned into ATT. When that happened, almost every day our calls would get dropped, either in the low-peak hours or in the high-peak hours (from 4pm to 7pm) and a lot of times after getting dropped we wouldn't be able to call each other. I live RIGHT next to an ATT cellphone tower, so wtf I couldn't connect is beyond me, but once our contracts ended we switched over to verizon.
We would talk the same amount and have NO dropped calls - no misconnections, etc.. ALSO, the sound was a lot clearer. With ATT we would hear static in the phone, not just my phone, but my sister's phone, and mom's phone, both of which are ATT, and different brands of phones (Motorola Razor and LG). Verizon doesn't have that.
The only I don't like about Verizon is the rollover minutes, which they do not do, but ATT does, which helps a lot. I have yet to go over my minutes and txting limit with verizon, but I've been close to that limit a few times.
For me, my experience with Verizon has been great.
But isn't reliability an objective quantity? Percent downtime, for example, would be an obvious way to measure reliability. From the same wikipedia page you linked to, both cheapness and safety are listed as objective rather than subjective claims and therefor not puffery; this would seem to be the same.
A more interesting question for me is "do we really want federal courts to get in the business of establishing the truth of advertising claims? Don't we have the Consumers Union for such things?
If this becomes commonplace, it could get crazy. For example, if 5 or more judges on the Supreme Court were avid Apple users, it could change the landscape of technology in the US. It might be a way to establish gay rights, though.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Didn't you notice that they wanted speed excluded? You can get a "reliable" pretty much anywhere if you drop the speed requirement low enough. Being able to depend upon a reliable amount of bandwidth is definitely a part of reliability.
AT&T around here isn't going to be winning any reliability contests, but they seem to have a point in this case.
Being able to depend upon a reliable amount of bandwidth is definitely a part of reliability.
That depends on how you define "reliable." When you talk about a "reliable old car" you're not saying "I can go 60mph in this thing any time I want." When you talk about a "reliable old computer" you probably aren't referring to speed. When you talk about hardwired phone lines being "reliable" you aren't talking about voice quality, you're talking about it always being available even during power outages. When you talk about a "reliable" network... speed isn't necessarily the issue. Whether or not it is usable is the issue... obviously, 0kb/s isn't very usable, either, but 5kb/s is. Maybe not to watch movies, I suppose.
Don't ever *EVER* call beer off-topic, alright?
Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
Reliable is an imprecise word. It depends entirely upon what you rely on the network to do. If you rely on the network to browse the web, then speed certainly does matter. If you're a doctor that relies on the network to be constantly contactable should one of his patients require surgery, speed really isn't important so long as there is enough to maintain a voice connection.
The best ruling might be for the judge to require Verizon to say "voice network" if they want to use the reliable wording. In my experience, there's no question that Verizon's voice network is beyond that of any other carrier. A few years ago I took a trip to Canyonlands national park. According to our guide, it's the most remote part of the continental US. Yet you can get a Verizon signal almost anywhere in the park. So reliably, I was told, that the US park system scrapped an expensive radio system they developed for the park in favor of Verizon cell phones.