AT&T Expands Complaint Against Verizon Ads in Federal Court

From DailyTech: When Verizon aired its "There's a Map for That" series of commercials poking fun at AT&T's 3G coverage, featuring lines like "if you want to know why some people have spotty 3G coverage, there's a map for that too", it seemed only a matter of time before AT&T would sue to try to take them down. Sure enough, just under a week ago AT&T filed suit against Verizon in New York Federal Court, claiming the ads misrepresented its coverage.

Verizon defended its ads, pointing to studies showing AT&T's 3G coverage to being lacking -- such as Apple's admission that 30 percent dropped call rates in New York (on AT&T) were normal. However, it quietly made some changes and began airing a new set of Christmas-themed commercials that didn't include the play on Apple's "There's an app for that" slogan. It also added a small disclaimer, stating "voice & data services available outside 3G coverage areas."

However, that apparently wasn't good enough for AT&T which has reportedly returned to court, looking to expand its suit to a request for a complete restraining order both on the older commercials and the new ones. According to AT&T its internal survey showed 53 percent of viewers believed the advertisements' gaps in AT&T's map to be complete gaps in coverage not just gaps in 3G coverage.

In the new complaint (PDF) AT&T accuses, "Verizon is running a series of advertisements which falsely communicate that AT&T does not have wireless data coverage throughout much of the United States. […] Contrary to the image presented in the Verizon ads, our wireless network is pervasive. It covers over 300 million people, or 97 percent of the U.S. population. Our fastest, or 3G, network covers approximately 233 million people, or 75 percent of the U.S. population."

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