Verizon to AT&T: Stop Being a Crybaby and Improve Your Network

Submitted by lalit on November 17, 2009 - 10:58am.

 

In the ongoing battle between Verizon and AT&T regarding “There’s A Map For That” ad campaign by Verizon, the company today filed an aggressive legal response to AT&T’s lawsuit. The lawsuit asked Verizon to pull the ads from the air. The ads highlight the poor 3G coverage offered by AT&T in comparison to Verizon. The legal response starts with an aggressive introduction:

“AT&T did not file this lawsuit because Verizon’s “There’s A Map For That” advertisements are untrue; AT&T sued because Verizon’s ads are true and the truth hurts.”

There is no doubt the truth hurts and a recent survay by YouGov showed Verizon’s ad campaign is improving its brand perception and AT&T’s BrandIndex is falling. AT&T has tried calling Verizon ads misrepresentation of facts by saying that AT&T has EDGE data service where there is no 3G coverage. However, EDGE is at least 5 times slower than EVDO Rev A (Verizon) and 10 times slower that 3.2Mbps HSPA (AT&T) networks.

Verizon’s legal response is clearly written to get more press coverage. And it is a very good idea because their recent Motorola Droid launch was pale in comparison to all three iPhone launches on AT&T.  Verizon concludes their legal response by saying:

“In the final analysis, AT&T seeks emergency relief because Verizon’s side-by-side, apples-to-apples comparison of its own 3G coverage with AT&T’s confirms what the marketplace has been saying for months: AT&T failed to invest adequately in the necessary infrastructure to expand its 3G coverage to support its growth in smartphone business, and the usefulness of its service to smartphone users has suffered accordingly.”

As we have wrote before iPhone users use more than 50 percent of all the cellular data in US, any network that has iPhone like device will face same problems AT&T is facing in big cities like New York. However, AT&T is charging iPhone users $30 per month for data and they should improve their data service. We hope that this advertisement campaign from Verizon might wake up AT&T to improve their 3G-network coverage before its too late.