Finally, the battle between two of America’s biggest wireless carriers, Verizon and AT&T has shifted from services provided customers and smart phones to the arena of a court house. AT&T Inc. has filed a lawsuit against Verizon Communications Inc. in a federal court, accusing Verizon of misleading customers via advertisements in which the latter has false claimed that, AT&T is a poor wireless network provider.
The court case has been filed in the U.S. District Court, Virginia and AT&T has stated that Verizon has been constantly trying to degrade its reputation, by providing false information to public regarding the reliability of AT&T’s services. In some of the commercials, Verizon has shown via maps and graphs that, AT&T has absolutely no coverage beyond its fast AT&T 3G covered areas. However, AT&T asserts that, even though the wireless speed in such areas is slower than the 3G ones, yet AT&T does provide service to these areas and has been doing so for a long time.
With the help of the lawsuit, AT&T is hoping to achieve an immediate injunction on the commercials in question and is also seeking financial damages Verizon, for the loss of customers and reputation due to the misleading commercials. According to Mark Siegel (Spokesman, AT&T),
“Through the use of a coverage map in [Verizon] ads, they suggest through all white or blank space, not only that AT&T doesn’t offer 3G coverage but no coverage at all. That’s misleading and that’s why we filed the lawsuit.”
On the other hand, Verizon is sticking to its claims that, the areas shown in the maps and the data projected in the commercials is absolutely correct. Furthermore, in the commercials, Verizon has stated that, the areas shown have been described as places with no 3G coverage. Verizon claims that, it has never said that, AT&T has no coverage at all. According to Brenda Raney (Spokeswoman, Verizon),
“We feel the maps are accurate … we make sure they are accurate. AT&T is focusing on the white area in the complaint, not the blue, but blue is what they advertise as their 3G coverage. The white areas are where there is no 3G coverage.”
Via Computer World.
