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Nov. 20, 2009

A federal judge has denied AT&T's request to stop Verizon Wireless from advertising large swaths of white space on maps showing where AT&T doesn't offer 3G coverage.

Now AT&T is fighting back at Verizon with a few plans of its own.

AT&T has hired actor Luke Wilson to explain in a new national television spot: "Who offers the best 3G experience? Let's compare."

The actor talks up AT&T's network speed, its ability to talk and surf the Web at the same time and its very popular iPhone, by far AT&T's flagship product.

AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel says the wireless carrier was disappointed in a federal court ruling that denied its request for a temporary restraining order to stop Verizon's ads.

AT&T then filed suit a week later challenging Verizon Wireless' portrayal of vast white spaces in its ads, which AT&T argued was misleading consumers into thinking AT&T doesn't have any data coverage in large parts of the United States.

Nevertheless, AT&T will have another chance to present its case in court on Dec. 16.

Verizon Wireless wasn't commenting on the court's ruling other than to say it's concentrating on competing for customers in the marketplace instead of the courtroom... (!)

On Nov. 17, AT&T announced it had completed substantial 3G upgrades in the greater San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle, and that it introduced 3G service in some smaller markets like Hartwell and Toccoa in Georgia.

AT&T also published a letter to its customers on its Web site saying it typically doesn't respond to competitors' advertising, but some recent ads from Verizon are so blatantly false and misleading, that we want to set the record straight about AT&T's wireless data coverage.

AT&T points out that the slower EDGE network covers more than 96 percent of the population, and GPRS covers 303 million people.

Now its 3G network covers about 75 percent of the population.

It will be interesting to see how Verizon fights back at AT&T in light of all this. Some now think that AT&T and Verizon are at war with each other...

About two weeks ago, Verizon Wireless unveiled its second Android-based phone, dubbed the Droid Eris which is made by HTC. The new wireless device is available along with the much-anticipated Motorola Droid.

The HTC Eris features a 3.2-inch touch screen and support for Flash, along with a 5.0 megapixel camera and full HTML browser. The new handset is also equipped with HTC Sense, which allows users to customize a seven-panel wide home screen with widgets and shortcuts.

The Eris also organizes interactions by person, allowing users to access text messages, e-mails, phone calls, Flickr streams and Facebook updates from a single contact card.

The Eris is available for $99.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate with a new two-year contract.

Motorola's DROID is priced at $199 with the customary contract, rebates and rate plan.

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Source: AT&T.