Verizon To AT&T: The Truth Hurts

Addressing AT&T's recent complaints and lawsuits over its latest series of ads picking at AT&T's network coverage, Verizon has only three words for AT&T: "The Truth Hurts."

As you may recall, this all started when Verizon started a series of ads mocking Apple's "There's an app for that" ads with, "There's a map for that" ads that emphasized the coverage area of Verizon's 3G network when compared to AT&T's.

That's the point: the ads compared 3G vs. 3G. While most of Verizon's network is 3G, most of AT&Ts is 2G / Edge. Thus, the AT&T map looked pretty sparse (above). Asserting that the Verizon maps confused end users, making them believe that AT&T had no coverage in the blank areas of their map (as opposed to no 3G), AT&T sued.

Verizon has responded with a court filing of its own (.PDF). The company opens the filing with the following:

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.

Ouch, that first sentence hurts. It doesn't seem like AT&T has much to complain about. Well, realistically, they do. The problem is that legally they don't have a lot to stand on. Verizon has little teeny fine print in their ads that makes it clear that the coverage maps are all about 3G. Whether or not customers understand just what that means isn't really their problem, now is it?

And after all, as Verizon points out in their filing, AT&T continues to use the tagline about its 3G network being "Nation's Fastest 3G Network," so why shouldn't Verizon use whatever ammo it can?