Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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".