ATT Sues VZW (update suits dropped)

ATT has lost their argument for an injunction, will get the opportunity to argue for one again in a month.

AT&T loses request for injunction against Verizon's Map for That ads

Judge said the ads are indeed 'sneaky' since people who are watching TV are nearly 'catatonic'. Not so sure that'll be reason enough to stop the ads from stating facts.

I read that earlier. I wonder how the judge feels about other commercials that viewers see since we are semi catatonic. You know the ones with no disclaimer like Captain Morgan.
 
Some additional details:

AT&T lawsuit a publicity boon for Verizon
12:01a ET November 19, 2009 (MarketWatch)

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Some things are just better off left alone.

In AT&T Inc.'s case, that would have been a better response to the ongoing ad campaign by rival Verizon Communications Inc. Instead, the telco giant got all huffy and indignant about Verizon's "there's a map for that" ads that poke fun at AT&T and contrast the 3G coverage areas of the two wireless carriers.

That righteous indignation led AT&T to file a lawsuit two weeks ago against Verizon, a suit which is confusing at best, and one that is making many people scratch their heads over why it was even filed. Did AT&T's top public-relations people have any input before the go-ahead was given to a highly-paid law firm to file this muddled request for a temporary restraining order?

On Wednesday, a federal judge in Atlanta denied AT&T's request to keep the ads from running until the legal dispute was settled. In so doing, the judge reportedly said the ads are "literally true." AT&T has another hearing on Dec. 16 and seems determined to press on.

The ruling was even more good fortune for Verizon, which had snipped at its arch-rival in its response to AT&T's original lawsuit. "The truth hurts," Verizon's attorneys wrote in their motion, filed on Monday.

AT&T's main beef is over the maps used in the ads, which show its 3G coverage area in the U.S. is much smaller than Verizon's.

Those maps are telling. As Verizon helpfully points out, it offers "5X more 3G coverage" than AT&T. And AT&T admits this as well, pointing out in its main 26-page argument that "Verizon's '3G' network covers more geographical space than AT&T's '3G' network on a national basis."

So what's the problem? AT&T is worried that potential customers will assume that lack of 3G coverage means no coverage at all. So AT&T argues that it is seeking only a limited relief, because it needs to "prevent consumers from being misled by the maps into believing that AT&T offers no wireless service" in large parts of the country.

Verizon originally said that AT&T customers were "out of touch" in large parts of the U.S., and subsequently removed this phrase from the ad, at AT&T's request. AT&T also argued that having a girl sitting under one map, showing AT&T's more limited 3G coverage, sad and frustrated and not able to do anything with her wireless device, implied that AT&T offers no coverage at all outside its 3G network.

According to Bloomberg News on Wednesday, Judge Timothy Batten said that while the ads, which use maps to compare the companies' third-generation networks, might be "sneaky" or "clever," they are "literally true."

AT&T's lawsuit so far is a clear admission of one thing -- Verizon's clever ads are hitting AT&T where it hurts.

As an AT&T user who has experienced countless dropped calls and tremendously spotty reception both in and out of the company's 3G network, it seems ludicrous to me that AT&T is focusing so much attention on its inferior network, which is exactly what this lawsuit does.

Even more laughable are the graphs in the lawsuit touting its dreaded EDGE network, "which provides consumers the full ability to browse the Internet, including social networking sites, stream audio/video, or send electronic mails and text message texts."

Well, yes, at a snail's pace.

Verizon's ad campaign is even boldly going after AT&T's strongest asset -- the iPhone. A new holiday commercial has an Apple Inc. iPhone-like device arriving at the "Island of Misfit Toys" to the wonderment of the other toys, until they see the AT&T coverage map appear pop up over the smartphone. "Oh!" they murmur in unison. "You're gonna fit right in here."

Thanks to AT&T's suit, Verizon is now getting more attention for its snarky TV ads and its plain-speaking legal response to AT&T's lawsuit, with sentences like "AT&T may not like the message that the ads send, but this Court should reject its efforts to silence the messenger," another turn AT&T was probably not counting on.

This legal squabble comes, not surprisingly, as the smartphone war is heating up -- in a very big way. Verizon is now selling the Motorola Inc. Droid phone, and plans to launch Palm Inc.'s Pre sometime next year in an effort to compete against the popular iPhone, for which AT&T still has exclusive access to.

Based on AT&T's comments, it looks like it will continue to fight, even though Batten said the giant is unlikely to prevail at its next hearing.

It would have been smarter to come back at Verizon with its own clever ad campaign, and put some of the millions it is paying its lawyers into further upgrading its network.
 
I don't know why America is playing with such old CDMA technology, don't they talk with the rest of the world?
Virtually all of the world apart from America is GSM and CDMA compatable and will be 4G, MC CDMA, LTE advanced. Even Verizon announced last December they would roll out 4G this December - no hope.
As for expecting Apple to manufacture Iphones for old CDMA technology what are they thinking, the US cell phone market is extremely small compared to the world market.
 
So when will T-Mobile make it's claims it is the superior service? Seems this is the latest in the advertising fiasco. I think the plan is to measure the impact of these commercials on business vs. the loss of revenue due to the suits and production costs, fines etc.

I think more and more, business will look at the cost of false advertising as an expense should they get caught, against the profits if the ads until they get caught.
 
I wonder if this is changing any of ATT's plans? If I was on the board of AT&T I would want some answers as to why so many billions have been spent and now AT&T is being pounded in ads. How did AT&T fall so far behind?
 
Might not be "so far." I'd love to see percent of population coverage. Plus how "deep" the coverage is, although with the iPhone that might not be so good.

I, personally, have seen great improvement.
 
OK, maybe I'm not getting something here... ATT is generalizing VZW's experience and saying that you can't talk on the phone and do other things at the same time with Verizon... but you can do that on any Blackberry... and wasn't that ability just now added to iphones? You couldn't do more than one thing at a time until just several months ago?

They do it here too... 'access to over 100,00 apps' but not everyone on ATT has an iphone, and all the ATT Blackberry users have access to the same number of apps



Dunno, seens like a few wild swings in their rebuttal commercials. Could provoke a VZW counter suit maybe? Hey, they're both selling netbooks now arent they, quick, someone boast access to millions of shareware/freeware programs.
 
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I have had my iphone tethered, been on a conference call and using apps on the iphone at the same time.

ATT claims they are close to VZ in population coverage of 3G. That might be nice, but when I leave the city it would be nice to still have 3G.
 
I wonder if maybe I can't browse the web while im on a call? Not sure I've ever tried that on my Storm. I am 100% sure do more than one thing at a time though, in fact often I have my phone doing too many things and it's easier to pull the battery/reset it (via an APP, omg!) than turn everything off individually. None of these shut down during a call and im able to switch to them during it...
 
OK, maybe I'm not getting something here... ATT is generalizing VZW's experience and saying that you can't talk on the phone and do other things at the same time with Verizon... but you can do that on any Blackberry... and wasn't that ability just now added to iphones? You couldn't do more than one thing at a time until just several months ago?

Not true. I have always been able to talk on the phone and use the internet at the same time on the iPhone.

I also didn't think that Blackberry's on Verizon was able to use the phone and internet at the same time. I could be wrong but that is the way I read things from people talking around here.
 
I thought there were 2 longstanding problems with the iphone, multi tasking, and copy/paste. Both of which were finally resolved with the most recent version?

True multi tasking is still a problem with the iPhone. You can use the phone and internet but that is about all.
 
I think the commercial posted above is pretty lame and boring, but the whole thing is turning very silly.

Lets be honest, both At&T and Verizon suck in their own ways. :D
 
Yup, I have to give them both credit though, the iPhone has accelerated smartphone innovation by multiple generations, and in order to compete with all these features that are relatively free VZW has given up their grip on a lot of the nickel and dime apps they've been trying to sell people. It's all better for those it matters to: the consumer.
 
I also didn't think that Blackberry's on Verizon was able to use the phone and internet at the same time.
As I understand it, this is a limitation of CDMA (??). I have an HTC WinMo phone on Verizon and if I'm on a call, I can't access the internet. I can't imagine a Blackberry being any different.

That said, and since ATT is touting this "feature" or ability in rebuttal to VZW's ads, how many people on ATT know you can do this ? I'm not talking about the technical geeks either, the average "joe" and "jane". Tell someone who's trying to decide on ATT or VZW that you can do this and see what their response is.
 
Thinking about it more, using internet while on a call has to happen so rarely, it kinda looks like they're reaching pretty hard to find something to boast about (in my opinion).

Just tried it on my Storm by calling my voicemail and then going back to the home screen and opening my browser, says that the network is in use, offers to go to a previous version of the Google News bookmark I clicked on. I think the only thing I've done while on the phone is access my phone book to read off a number to someone I was on the phone with though.
 
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