AT&T is this country’s largest phone company, but that did not stop it from crying foul when the smaller but scrappier Verizon wireless went after it with their “there’s a map for that” ad campaign. The well known ads, which play off Apple’s iPhone “there’s an app for that” spots, compare maps of wireless coverage between the two companies. In Verizon’s ads, AT&T’s 3G coverage is shown as, well, lacking compared to the apparently endless Verizon 3G coverage. AT&T promptly sued to stop the ads, claiming that the maps suggest AT&T customers can’t fully use their wireless devices outside the 3G networks coverage areas.
Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Batten denied AT&T’s request to stop the ad campaign and said he found it unlikely that AT&T would prevail. While the judge found the maps used to illustrate the coverage provided by the companies’ third generation networks may be “sneaky” or “clever” they were also “literally true.”
AT&T’s suit may illustrate it’s attempt to try every avenue it can to defend itself from Verizon; competition is stiff in the wireless devices market. Bloomberg.com reports that AT&T and Verizon are competing for a vanishing pool of consumers. Currently there are enough mobile devices already in use to cover about 90 of the American population.
AT&T may want to leave the courtroom behind and go back to concentrating on it’s customers. They ranked lowest in customer satisfaction among the top U.S. wireless providers in the annual Consumer Reports survey. Verizon ranked number one.
Verizon also dropped its related lawsuit related.
Related Resources:
- AT&T Drops Lawsuit to Stop Verizon Ads Over Network (Bloomberg)
- Seven Rules for Legal Advertising (FindLaw)
- CTIA Wireless Association site
- Phones - Wireless Devices (FindLaw)
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