AT&T adds Verizon's Island of Misfit Toys holiday ads to lawsuit, demands they be yanked off the air
By Nilay Patel 
posted Nov 12th 2009 2:03PM
posted Nov 12th 2009 2:03PM
Happy holidays, folks.The spotted elephant, in a surprised manner, asks the iPhone "What are you doing here? You can download apps and browse the web!" and a Dolly for Sue asserts that "Yeah. People will love you [the iPhone]."
Read - Digital Daily
Read - AT&T's amended complaint [PDF]
I saw one of the original commercials last night, and there was a disclaimer at the bottom that basically said it was representative of 3g data coverage, but voice and data are still available outside of 3G coverage areas... or something like that.
sounds to me that AT&T has nothing on this, since it is disclaimed that there is still voice and data outside of 3g coverage areas.
SERIOUSLY?!?!?
Is this a joke?
Does anyone in America REALLY give a crap when you have the two biggest carriers (both raep customers in terms of cost) fighting over coverage? Both have great coverage, and both totally suck in terms of either 3G coverage or how data is billed (differently on different phones). SHUT UP ALREADY BOTH OF YOU AT&T AND VERIZON!
Now...
I think just to be fair, Verizon needs to specifically mention or show that AT&T does offer near 3G speeds in many "blank" areas with the iPhone, rather then show no coverage. But then again, this is a 3G comparison, so maybe AT&T should shut up and stop spending money on attorneys and more on coverage buildout.
Exactly what I was thinking. Why not make the customers happy and make it so the ad isn't true. Verizon isn't lying at all in their ads it isn't their fault ATT is wasting their money on making deals with Apple and fighting useless lawsuits instead of building up their coverage area.
ISNT this the same company who got s for claiming to have the fewest dropped calls and had to yank that ad because it REALLY wasnt true. DIdnt they resort to the little print at the bottom of the ad that said in certain markets based on a leading third party survey in which Consumer Reports went out of their way to say it wasnt them and wrote an article (Consumer Reports) stating the At&T commercial wasnt true? Did that last sentence run on a lil bit>? My bad. Anyways AT&T opened this can of worms when they brought the term 3G into the main stream. VZW has been 3g forever and brought it up after AT&T started flapping their I-Phones about it. Oh and EDGE is not close to 3g.
That misfit toys commercial cracks me up. I love it. I think AT&T would prefer that a disclaimer also be included indicating that Wi-Fi is available for free at Starbucks as well as landline coverage in those white areas to make up for the lack of 3G. Hell 2 hours of disclaimers after the commercial wouldn't be enough to cover their short comings. May as well include all their landline payphones as part of their coverage too. No 3g? But we have pay phones in those areas...Anyone know what percentage of their cell coverage is 3g?
I don't think it's a misrepresentation at all. They're comparing 3G coverage and they show the 3G areas. They show both theirs and ATTs and mind you I am not a customer of either, so I am not being biased. I did notice that the "data" coverage map on ATT's site now just shows "data" and not 3G/Edge/GRPS like they did in the past. Sounds like someone is trying to cover up. I'd say this http://www.xti9.com/att/att3gfull.gif is pretty close to what VzW is showing on their ads (the 3G part). ATT doesn't have an argument. They're having a pity party over people that are sheep possibly being sheep and following what they see in ads, because hey that is who they're marketing with Iphones. Blah. Quit whining. If you don't like looking bad for your 3G network, upgrade it. Quit wasting your customer's $ on legal suits that are flawed and reinvest it in the network they're paying you to maintain and upgrade.
Why bother upgrading to 3g when 4g is around the corner. Lawyer fees are much cheaper. With the iphone in hand they just need to wait out the exclusivity and sit on their laurels and rake in that data plan cash without spending any on building out their 3g
From page 22 of the amended suit:
Five Times More Coverage Claim
88. In all of the advertisements described above, Verizon makes the misleading statement that it has “5 times more ‘3G’ coverage than AT&T.” While this statement is literally true based on square miles, it is misleading because the overwhelming majority of the US population lives and works where both Verizon and AT&T have “3G” coverage. Indeed, from a population standpoint, Verizon only has 1.24 times more “3G” coverage than AT&T (285 million people/230 million people).
So what ATT is saying is that the extra 24% pops VZW covers with 3G is insignificant (albeit that amounts to say 55 million people). How about VZW sue them for false advertising in their "fastest 3G" claim since while "literally true (their words)" in a few metropolitan cities, "it's misleading because 55 million people in 5x the square miles have VZW 3G coverage when ATT doesn't." Anybody with a 1st grade education knows EDGE is nowhere near as fast as 3G. ATT lists EDGE speeds as 35-135k which is a far cry from 3G speeds.
AT&T states that they are setting the record straight on there website...This is getting out of hand!!!
http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=14002
Funny that on that page they have a link to coverage maps, they are their data (3g+edge) and voice maps. I wonder why they are hiding their 3g map?
I **LOVE** how AT&T says "most popular smartphones" and "more wireless apps". Everybody and their dead grandma probably knows they are just referring to the iphone since it has sold however many and there's the appstore with "over 100,000 applications". I'm sure they're not even counting the BlackBerry AppWorld.
.. never know.. if this continues.. sprint may just shut both of them up ( in a quiet way) lol
by loosing another 750,000-million customers yet again? ;)
Sprint shut them up. lmao. When? Right after Deutch Telecom takes over?
Haha, well their lawsuit would be totally valid had VzW shown a drawing of the percentage of people covered by networks and not a MAP OF THE UNITED STATES depicting the actual geographic area covered by the 2 carriers' 3G networks...but it wasn't, so again the lawsuit is completely stupid. As far as business model, depending on what it costs to deploy 3G towers, perhaps ATT is smarter by doing as they have done, but I suppose they didn't weigh in the cost of having their cost savings exposed in the ad then did they? I bet that's costing more than some towers at this point. Heck, a smart person, if concerned about data coverage would have figured this out on their own (well back when ATT had a real data map that showed the different coverages on it before the covered it up by making a blanket data coverage map) in deciding which carrier to choose. I bet, however, that there are a lot of people that don't consider that or want "that device" that only the 1 carrier has, and made their decision based on 1 thing and not the whole picture. Either way, it's the truth and I do not understand how they can win a lawsuit fighting that.
The good news in this cat fight, that inevitability consumers will win. We will get better coverage, with higher speeds at lower cost. The education that these ads power and the demands of more powerful smartphones will also be a driver. Hail, hail the consumer.
I keep watching this ad, its hysterical and a great piece of marketing, that is entertaining and informative (as far as doing its job). The toys moan with complete understanding that the phone is cool but once they see the 3g coverage map that the iphone running on Edge on all those areas becomes a misfit. I think that's fair, what real good is an iphone along with connectivity apps that only can have access on Edge? Painfully slow or unusable, aka a misfit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JgrBtn8XdU