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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."
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. "
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?
More != Better.
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
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.
My addiction: Arguing with idiots. AKA Slashdot!
Even if it is they aren't advertising that their 3G is faster, just that their 3G is larger than AT&T which is completely true. Verizon upgraded all of their towers to support 3G, AT&T has only upgraded some towers in more concentrated metro areas.
Verizon is beginning to upgrade towers to 4G next year. And supposedly according to rumors there is another Android phone either on black Friday or mid December along with a bunch of other new smart phones launching throughout December. They are going after AT&T very aggressively.
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.