Battle of the Phones

As a parent, I remember watching the Island of Misfit Toys at Christmas time with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer with my kids. It wasn’t one of my favorite shows, and the animation is better than that from those older shows which was pretty cheesy, but it was still something I had to watch every year. The Miser Brothers Christmas was another one I watched every holiday season.
I have to say I was a little surprised when I saw a commercial for it the other day and saw an Apple I-Phone on the island. I will admit I started laughing when I realized it was a Verizon Wireless commercial making fun of AT&T’s spotty 3G coverage.
This has lead to quite a battle now Verizon has their map commercials all over television and AT&T now has commercials talking about how their coverage is better than Verizon’s. Although I know from my own personal experience that I had horrible coverage in Valley City on my trip up there with my AT&T phone.
The most foolish part is that AT&T filed a lawsuit against Verizon claiming that the map commercials are misleading. In my profession, I deal with cell phone and especially data service coverage multiple times a day. We have Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T phones all over the country and we have fewer coverage issues with Verizon than we do with any other company.
These ads are correct in that Verizon has much better 3G coverage across the country than they AT&T does. AT&T, in their commercials, focuses only on coverage which to me is even more misleading because they do not tell you that certain services may not be available on your phone if you are in the majority of the coverage zones around the country. Verizon has countered that this lawsuit is nothing but a stunt by AT&T to gain more exposure to shoppers in this critical holiday season.
This is all very reminiscent of the battle between AT&T and MCI, as well as Sprint, for long distance customers back in the 1980’s and 90’s. There were lawsuits, false advertisements, as well as misleading commercials all over the industry. This goes to prove that no matter how big of a difference there is with the phones, the marketing and demand for market share will never change.