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Judge denies AT&T's restraining order request over Verizon 3G map ads
A federal judge denied AT&T's request to issue a temporary restraining order that would have forced Verizon to stop showing ads that feature a side-by-side map that shows Verizon Wireless' 3G coverage as significantly better than AT&T's.
AT&T filed suit in federal district court earlier this month in Atlanta, claiming Verizon's ads mislead customers by suggesting that AT&T subscribers have no coverage at all. AT&T has called the ads blatantly false and has said that the commercials have caused irreparable harm to the company.
AT&T recently sought to "set the record straight" with its customers, noting that its 3G coverage covers 75 percent of the U.S. population, and that 96 percent is covered by its EDGE data network.
AT&T said it plans to continue with the case.
"While we are disappointed with the court's decision on our request for a temporary restraining order, we still feel strongly 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," Mark Siegel, a spokesman for AT&T, said in an email to Cnet. "We look forward to presenting our case to the court in the near future."
Meanwhile, Verizon seemed pleased with the turn of events. "We expected the outcome," Verizon spokesman Jim Gerace told FierceWireless. "And now we're getting on with the business of competing for customers in the marketplace and not the courtroom."
For more:
- see this Cnet article
Related articles:
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AT&T sues Verizon over 'there's a map for that' ad
Verizon seeking judgment on 'Most Reliable' ad claims
Verizon takes swipe at iPhone, begins marketing Droid
Comments
Posted by Anonymous | November 19, 2009 - 9:23am
Did anyone think that AT&T's argument was valid in the first place?
Posted by Anonymous | November 19, 2009 - 9:24am
at&t coverage is the worst I have seen. you will go from full bars to no bars for no reason at all.
Posted by Anonymous | November 19, 2009 - 3:07pm
Yep, it is horrible coverage. Travel local, around the country, stay put - it does not matter. It is impossible to have a reasonable, professional-sounding client-call on the iphone. I had to give my iphone to my kid and went and got a blackberry. i don't like the apps and browser experience as much on the blackberry as I did on the iphone, but at least on the other carrier my clients can now hear me reasonably. At the end of the day, a smartphone has to be be a phone first.
Posted by Anonymous | November 19, 2009 - 9:31am
at&t is finally getting what has been due them for a long time. they're bullies. wahhhhhhhhh!!
Posted by Anonymous | November 19, 2009 - 10:02am
AT&T's business model seems to focus on restraint of trade sought through the courts. A fuzzy thinking PR nightmare that seems consistent with their mediocre service. If I were an AT&T stockholder, I would be demanding some actual leadership. Welcome to the 21st. century AT&T - Stop whining and start competing!
Posted by Anonymous | November 19, 2009 - 2:54pm
I used to work for ATTWS. From day one, they bet on the wrong digital technology (TDMA) and have never caught up in their constant poor network engineering planning. There is no mystery as to why they have the worst behaving network in the U.S. They have the hallowed AT&T name, and it is that which convinced Apple to ride that horse. AT&T simply bamboozled Apple and bent over for terms the other mobile network operators thought were onerous. AT&T is merely lucky to have locked up an exclusive on the iphone, but when the contract is up in 2010, you better not be holding AT&T stock. Their wireless division is their most valuable but upon the end of iphone exclusivity their will be a massive customer churn exodus that will impact revenue unlike anything seen before in the wireless carrier business.
Posted by Anonymous | November 19, 2009 - 3:01pm
You are right. ATT is just a successful marketing machine leveraging the famous ATT name. There is no longer substance behind the marketing hype.
Posted by Anonymous | November 19, 2009 - 4:33pm
I find it interesting that they're arguing that the ad is misleading when it's quite clear in the commercials that the map says "AT&T 3G coverage." How is that misleading. I don't think you can be any more clearer. Especially considering how AT&T advertises their 3G coverage all the time. And those ad's aren't the cause of the irreparable damages, it's their shoddy network. This is no secret, people have been complaining for months, maybe longer. This seems like sour grapes, they're upset because a competitor and not the customers are the ones talking about their network issues.
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