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AT&T Loses First Legal Battle Against Verizon
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."
because it's not LIBEL if it's TRUE.
They were insane to bring this to court. Verizon could not have paid for better advertising. This is going to go down in the book as one of the stupidest moves in business history.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Is anyone surprised at this result? Verizon advertises its better 3G coverage. It's true. Simple as that. No more debate necessary.
This is a little off topic, but if there is one industry that desperately needs some Truth In Advertising laws enforced, its the wireless industry. I don't know why AT&T is so pissed. All the major carriers play up the smallest advantage they have over competitors as 'THE' deciding factor in who is the best carrier. How can Sprint AT&T and Verizon all have the best 3G networks like they each claim in their commercials?
Yeah, I've got nothing...
That's a bit like Goliath fighting Goliath. Where the hell is David?
>>>enforce contracts as a way to not have to compete. Libertarian ideas about competition are just as utopian as socialist ideas about cooperation
I agree, but you forget that you don't "have" to sign contracts. I didn't have a contract with my old Cingular/AT&T service, nor do I have one with my new VirginMobile service. I also don't have a contract with Netscape ISP, or Dish Network. I *chose* not to take their offered contracts, and you could do the same, if you don't like being locked-in for 1-2 years.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
It doesn't scale either.
Get off my lawn.
You can't really compare the maps anyway.
Verizon's map is a coverage area map. They paint broad swaths of area where they have towers, but don't show any gaps in signal. Even up here in Verizon country (New England), I found that Verizon has plenty of dead zones where I don't get signal yet I'm in an area of the map that says I should. Verizon just takes each tower (I guess) and paints a circle around it with the theoretical diameter that the tower could reach.
AT&T's map, as far as I can see, is an actual signal map If I zoom in on it, I see predicted levels of signal and gaps in coverage that correspond roughly with the gaps I actually experience when I'm going places. It's not perfectly accurate, of course, but at least it makes the apparent attempt to be honest about actual signal. I don't know how they do it - perhaps they simply check terrain in Google Earth and look for landscape that "shadows" a tower. But whatever - I find it's very rare for me to lose signal in areas where the AT&T map shows coverage.
So, while Verizon may technically be accurate in stating that they have better "3G coverage" nationwide, I bet if you actually compared signal (that is, areas where you can actually get a 3G signal, and not areas within x miles of a tower regardless of terrain), Verizon's map would look a whole lot less thorough.
Verizon has the better 3G coverage. Fine, I get that. Of course, I don't have a 3G capable phone so I really don't care. But I get that it is important to some people. Verizon even has (marginally) better Voice/non-3G Data coverage here in New England.
But I had no way of honestly comparing them based on the coverage maps. AT&T showed me incomplete coverage that matched my real-world experience with my prepaid Go! phone. Verizon showed absolute 100% coverage everywhere which certainly did NOT match our experience with my wife's Verizon phone.
Example: My mother lives in a small town on the coast. When I go to her house, coverage is VERY spotty - you basically have to be near a window to get a bar or two. Verizon and AT&T have the exact same actual signal - very low (1-2 bars) and you have to pretty much be at a window standing still to make a call and have any hope of completing a conversation. My wife's Verizon phone and my AT&T phone were pretty much identical in performance.
The maps tell a very different story. AT&T shows my mother's house as "no coverage" along with a good chunk of the peninsula she lives on. Verizon shows the entire peninsula she lives on with full-on 3G coverage, no gaps whatsoever. Most of the peninsula has *no coverage of any kind* with AT&T or Verizon.
I finally concluded that I'd rather be told the truth, and when my company offered the choice of carriers for my Crackberry I went with AT&T. It didn't hurt, of course, that Verizon also locks out the GPS on the models we had, and AT&T allows me to use it (Verizon CLAIMED you could, but then they told you afterward that you had to buy the $10/month TeleNav service and even then you STILL wouldn't be allowed to use the GPS with anything other than TeleNav, Blackberry Maps, and Google Maps).
I have no particular love for AT&T, but at least they appear to be making an effort at honesty about their signal coverage, and when they sell me a phone with a feature installed they let me use the feature.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Oh it's a lot more convoluted than that.
For all intents and purposes when you think of the AT&T monopoly of yore, actually Verizon is more of that than the current incarnation of AT&T that is entertaining us today with this legal battle.
First, AT&T was divested. The monopoly part became mini-monopolies - the Baby Bells. They were still almost exclusively the only show in town for what they did (local telephony). AT&T actually had to compete at that point, on several fronts. Long Distance became a highly competitive arena over time. And the part that made telephony infrastructure equipment could no longer simply dictate to the local phone companies what they were gonna buy.
The first wave of Wireless in the US was a mandated duopoly. Each area got two licenses for wireless service providers. The "B" band went to the established phone company while the "A" band was up for grabs. The "B" side was often termed the "wireline" side because they were established companies already. Gradually, a large chunk of the upstart "A" side companies coalesced into McCaw. Before the "B" side companies started merging, McCaw was actually bigger than most.
Eventually AT&T bought McCaw and became or created AT&T Wireless.
The game changed with lots more licenses and more players.
SBC bought up Ameritech, then AT&T and then changed it's name to AT&T.
In all of that, if you restrict your view to the Wireless stuff Verizon is much more directly a descendant of the Baby Bells.