AT&T Issues Memo Rebuking ‘False and Misleading’ Verizon Ads

Ed Sutherland ()

att-logo

AT&T has fired back against Verizon Wireless, telling customers its rivals’ recent ads “are so blatantly false and misleading, that we want to set the record straight about AT&T’s wireless data coverage.”

The letter to AT&T customers claims that it covers 97 percent of the U.S. population and has twice the number of smartphones than Verizon.

The public rebuttal comes a day after the carrier amended its court case against Verizon, asking the federal court to restrain holiday ads attacking AT&T or describing the iPhone as a “misfit” due to poor 3G availability. The lawsuit originally took issue with Verizon’s “there’s a map for that” ads critical of AT&T coverage.

AT&T told the court Verizon’s latest advertising salvo showing the iPhone on the island of misfit toys “falsely communicates that the iPhone is a broken device because it cannot browse the Web or download applications when outside of AT&T’s depicted coverage area.”

During the past weekend, Verizon launch a series of Christmas-theme ads attacking AT&T coverage for iPhone owners. Along with the island of misfit toys ad, the carrier introduced “Blue Christmas” and “Elves.” The ads focused more on AT&T rather than being critical of the iPhone itself. Verizon, which also introduced the Android-based Droid series of smartphones, had attacked the iPhone in its “IDon’t” ads promoting the handset.

DON'T MISS
Verizon Targets AT&T, Labels iPhone a ‘Misfit Toy’

[Via AppleInsider, Electronista and AT&T letter]

3 comments »

About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

(sorry, you need Javascript to see this e-mail address)| Read more posts by .

Posted in News |

  • http://www.grinningidiot.com JAYnLA

    I really really really cannot wait until the iPhone is available on other carriers.

  • Jason SAVAGE

    I live in Helena, the capitol of Montana. No AT&T coverage here. No option of having an iphone. As much as I dislike Verizon for typical cell phone company nonsense, their coverage is everywhere in Montana. And it’s very good. No iphone yet for Montanans:(

  • Ramón

    I totally disconnected from AT&T after losing more money, or should I say, after having them steal money from my account.
    My iPhone is sitting in its dock and it’ll remain there until Apple comes to its senses.
    I’ve watched Apple’s customer service improve steadily over the years that I’ve been using their product, and I give them high marks for it, but the relationship with AT&T is working against all of their effort.
    Apple shouldn’t stand idly by while this behemoth tarnishes their name with underhanded practices and draconian “customer service”.
    Just say NO to AT&T!!