There's An Apology For That: AT&T Dismisses Its Pointless Lawsuit Against Verizon Over Ads

from the nice-work dept

Wed, Dec 2nd 2009 4:40pm — Mike Masnick

We still don't understand why AT&T called so much more attention to Verizon's ads that highlight AT&T's weak 3G network coverage by suing over the ads. Things were made worse when a judge refused to block the ads from airing. Perhaps finally realizing that all this was doing was creating free advertising for Verizon -- and more attention on the quality of AT&T's network -- the company has decided to drop the lawsuit. Apparently, instead, it's going to focus on its own misleading ad campaign.

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Filed Under: 3g, advertisements, commercials, lawsuits, maps
Companies: at&t, verizon

15 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 2 Dec 2009 @ 5:54pm

AT&T is trying to muddy the waters as well by running "coverage" ads that skirt the issue by not addressing 3G coverage, and just addressing general coverage. It's a pretty good attempt at damage control, but it means that Verizon is essentially dictating their ad budgets and creatives for the moment.
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- Anonymous Coward, 2 Dec 2009 @ 6:00pm
  
  Re:
  Both ads are disingenuous to some degree.
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Brian (profile), 2 Dec 2009 @ 6:09pm

So they shifted from annoying lawsuits to even more annoying commercials. Their "You can't surf and talk" commercial is fairly pointless to begin with but the other one is by far the most annoying commercial. They split it into two parts and if you don't see the first part you just see a moron throwing pictures at a map calling out city and state names.
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- Anonymous Coward, 2 Dec 2009 @ 6:25pm
  
  Re:
  He's not a moron. He's exactly average.
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- DCX2, 2 Dec 2009 @ 7:41pm
  
  Re:
  As a Droid user who has run into this limitation, I must point out that it's not just "you can't surf and talk". It's "you can't do voice and data at the same time". This makes getting a call during turn-by-turn navigation somewhat tricky.
  
  I long for the day when everything is just data plans. No more voice/text.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 3 Dec 2009 @ 10:28am
    
    Re: Re:
    It's not the plan...
    
    It's the hardware/network. You simply cannot do voice/data at the same time on an EVDO/CDMA network unless you have two separate com chips in it.
    
    I would guess that andriod doesn't support that either.
    
    It sucks, but we'll live.
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  - gee, 18 Jan 2010 @ 11:55am
    
    Re: Re:
    The HTC Eris works with data and voice. The other day I had one person on hold, another on the line and looked up an address on google for him. All while riding in the back seat of a car, all at once.
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- slander (profile), 6 Dec 2009 @ 11:39am
  
  Re:
  According to a number of reports, "You can't surf" on AT&T even when all you're trying to do is surf...
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Freedom, 2 Dec 2009 @ 8:48pm

Competition is good...
I'm glad to see the competition frankly - it's good for consumers.

When Apple beats up on Microsoft in a what most would call a series of "unfair" commercials, it makes Microsoft make better products and in the end we all win. I frankly don't agree with Apple's business models, but without a heathly Apple, Microsoft will have no real incentive to produce a better OS. (Windows 7 is a great example of what Microsoft can do when focused). I think the same is true with Verizon and AT&T. Only to me, both are about equal sized competitors and less Apple versus Microsoft (or AMD versus Intel) type of thing.

Freedom
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mjb5406 (profile), 2 Dec 2009 @ 9:26pm

Funny how that works...
Right after Comsuer Reports says AT&T came in dead last in customer satisfaction, they drop their lawsuit. Almost like "oops... we don't need any more bad publicity than we already have"!
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Dec 2009 @ 4:16am

If there is no lawsuit, what is the point?
And here I thought the entire reason they were doing the general coverage commercial was to muddy the waters and make a better case by confusing the potential jury. If that is not the case, I have no idea why they are running that commercial, it seems completely pointless.
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CStrek (profile), 3 Dec 2009 @ 5:36am

AT&T Vs. Verizon 3G????
I see we have a lot of Verizon fans around...As a user of both Verizon and AT&T and using 3G on both phones, I have found that AT&T's 3G is much much faster than Verizon's. Verizon's is much more like the EDGE network on AT&T. So, as everyone is complaining about the attacks from both sides why is no one looking at the speed of 3G. From my limited knowledge 3G is what each network is calling their 3G network and not a common protocol for speed. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
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- Killer_Tofu (profile), 3 Dec 2009 @ 6:49am
  
  Re: AT&T Vs. Verizon 3G????
  No, you are quite correct.
  3G simply refers to each groups set of 3rd generation gear used to make stuff faster than their older network.
  If it was a standard that would be awesome. Then you wouldn't have to worry about how much any single specific company has coverage.
  Much how things used to be when there was competition in both the GSM and CDMA areas and with one carrier you could use another carrier's towers (of the same technology base). Before they bought up all the competition except for a few here and there.
  Although, I think that even if 3G was a standard, they couldn't all cooperate just because of how different GSM and CDMA are.
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Bob Webster (profile), 3 Dec 2009 @ 8:10am

Striesand Effect Jumps the Internet Firewall
AT&T lawyers managed to triple the public awareness of Verizon's advertising campaign. Someday maybe management will realize that some attorneys don't understand business.
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Jeny, 3 Dec 2009 @ 10:58pm

What was the point to make such a law suit again Verizon ?
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