AT&T 'hits' back at Verizon's Map for That campaign with an 'ad' of its own
By Paul Miller 
posted November 18th 2009 7:31PM
posted November 18th 2009 7:31PM
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
posted November 18th 2009 7:31PM
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Testing the new commenting system
I read on a news report yesterday that the ebook business was so hot, that 1 out of every 5 new iphone app is an ebook.
wth?????????????? How does that get counted as an app?
B&N has over a millions ebooks, all of which I can read on my HTC TP2 with ereader. So does microsoft get to claim over a million apps available for WinMo?
I would like to see VZW set a research team to work counting and categorizing how many REAL apps that Apple has.
Heck, Apple should do that. Make the bogus apps get downranked into oblivion, so it isn't so hard to pick the diamonds out of the sea of broken glass.
Verizon is much better, ZuneHD is much better then the ipod, who cares about apps, I want music and good sound
Poor effort
I love how AT&T always claims they have the fastest 3G network. That may be true, but what good is being the fastest when the coverage sucks
LUKE WILSON!
That's Luke Wilson? I wouldn't have known it was him unless I read the article. The guy has gained some weight.
Oh yea?! WELL!.... Well.... MY dad can beat up YOUR dad!
Keep bringin' the heat, Verizon. This sort of stuff makes my day. How butthurt do you have to create a lawsuit claiming that information on Verizon's commercial is misleading, just to turn around and make your own commercial that has so much misleading information?
I love the freeze-frame of the ad in the video window, btw. Fine Print - "Applications are device specific"
hahahahaha... classic. Care to elaborate on those devices? Oh yea, that's right, its only one device.
@admile3 - you are a douche... First - this one device you reference is actually three iphones - 2g, 3g, 3gs. They are no different then htc making three different phones. Since when can you lump every LG smartphone into one, or samsung or anybody else for that matter? Follow that with the fact that any windows mobile 6.0, 6.1 or 6.5 now have access to the windows marketplace and the fact that all of the blackberries have access to their application store - and that excludes all but the Nokia E71x from having access to thousands of applications. Factor this into the fact that all of Verizons and T-Mobiles phones are in the same boat and you have a level playing field - except the fact the iphone is still there - which 3000 useless fart apps aside - kills everyone in the app market currently and will probably forever.
Second butthurt? If you owned a network that has great coverage and people came in saying they wanted to switch because you don't have any coverage in Montana - what are you going to do? The fact of the matter is I get people asking me all the time what I do with my iphone when I am in Montana or Wyoming. It works great in both states - in case anyone is wondering. I have signal going down fourth of july pass in places where my old Verizon ENv 2 had nothing any my friends blackberry from Verizon still has nothing.
LEt's get back to the fact the 3g experience is so much better - NYC, Chicago and LA aside. Fact of the matter is AT&T had a point to make. They tried to do it civilly - now they are going to have to try and rave VZ through the coals - which isn't ever good for business. If you dig deeper you will discover that Verizon has over 50 percent of people out of contract and that they are losing 3 people to big blue for every person they are gaining back.
How is it that someone who has such a huge and amazing network is doing such a terrible job? Because people are bored to tears on their network and sick of feeling like a number to the nations "largest network". Toss in the fact they have $350 termination fees right now and I will never sign up with Verizon again. Not saying I am sticking with at&t, when the iphone isn't just theirs anymore.
Meanwhile admile3 - you can keep being a douche...
@admile3 and @smittan
You guys are both being jerks. -1 to both
I don't live in the US but this AT&T, Verizon shenanigans has kept my interest as of late, don't know how it works in the US but here in the UK a cross tends to signify NO, we use a tick to signify YES and satisfaction. Just interested if you US viewers (especially when you see that still above) If you think...
Nations Fastest 3G network... NO
Talk and surf at the same time... NO
@JayUK the x-marks-the-spot mentality here.. if the ad company REALLY thought about it, they would have used check marks or maybe even the company logos..
@l3it3r Thanks l3it3r it's quite interesting how little changes like that can mean so much mentally in advertising.
I'm an AT&T customer, have been since (thanks to my wife) the RAZR first came out - was on Nextel before then, Sprint before that and Bell Atlantic Mobile in the beginning. My 3G service is GREAT - as long as I'm in a major metropolitan area, or within about 20 miles of one. Also, the phone argument really doesn't hold much water anymore unless they're grouping the iPhone into the 'smartphone' category, which is totally wrong - but I digress...
AT&T has great service, sure, but if you live in Kalamazoo or BFE, you're going with Verizon, that's just how it goes. Thankfully for me, I live in the DC Metro area and get stellar HSDPA service on my HTC Touch Pro 2. I've had over 15 GSM Cell phones, never once wishing that I was on a CDMA network just so I can get my email while sitting on a Ski-Lift or low crawling in my old Army unit during training.. I can't say the same about my experience with Nextel, but that was more of a impulse buy than anything...
Anyway - lunch coma rant over /over.
@l3it3r
You live in the Metro DC area? And think that AT&T's coverage and speed is good? Are we from the same Metro DC area? Or did AT&T do a massive overhaul of their coverage there in the last six months that I'm unaware of?
AT&T sucks horribly near there. In fact I've found the opposite is true, when I'm near a major area my AT&T sucks. In rural areas like backwoods North Carolina and South Carolina my coverage has been great.
Seriously? From all appearances, the Engadget guys - especially Paul Miller - are now the world's largest subset of Verizon FANBOYS! I was excited to see the new site, only to be let down with a huge Motorola Droid frame at the top touting their "big review", an ad for Verizon above that and to the side, a box with their "most commented articles" and last but not least - two of which reference the lawsuit between Verizon and ATT. I read both articles and they are just crap - Not because they may or may not be covering fact, but because of the bias.
Fact of the matter is Verizon's "3g" network is slower than crap here in Eastern Washington. There coverage is terrible in our state, and now that I am on AT&T (I know I might appeared bias) I can't go back to not being able to get spreadhseets and email while I am on the phone. I am on the phone for 3/4 of my work day and when I had Verizon - it was double that some days - that or I had to lug around my laptop and air card which was lame.
Is any carrier perfect? No! But at least give AT&T some credit. No one is even asking why Verizon is acting like this... Well it's because over 50 percent of their people are no under contract. They are currently losing 3 customers to AT&T for every customer that AT&T loses to them. They are nto getting the job done, so they are trying as hard as they can to stem the blood-letting. So Paul Miller - grow a pair - get more info and start being less biased. No one likes apple fanboys, verizon fanboys, at&t fanboys or any fanboys for that matter.
@smittan
Thank you for looking at the situation logically...not a fan boy here but like seriously? do we really have to bash a service provider just because its doing so much better than the competition...*sigh...Big Red fanboys...
"3G not available in all areas." Well they just hit the nail on the head there didn't they?
ATT:
Worlds greatest network of dying 5 feet inside glass buildings ( X )
High speed network which crawls in speed inside any major city such as Chicago ( X )
Blocks your ability to use your iPhone like you want to (VoIP, Streaming, etc..) ( X )
Yeah ATT is sooo much better.
AT&T by no means has the fastest network. Everywhere I test, AT&T is in last place for speed, regardless of what their network can technically do.
It's not what's on paper, it's what it is actually doing out there in the real world.
Verizon is WAY faster. Sorry AT&T.
Is AT&T *REALLY* the fastest 3G network as they claim? I doubt it. It certainly is the fastest to drop calls, though.
Wow, ATT can't even afford magnets for all their X's let alone upgrade their crappy network
@(Unverified) I noticed that too! What kind of ramshackle operation are they running over there? Ohh, wait.... that's right :(
Yeah. Because EVERY AT&T phone has access to 100,000 apps... *sigh* I hate AT&T...
Too bad their coverage still sucks... even Tmobile has similar coverage to AT&T and they're not even in the same league practically! Verizon has always remained strong and will continue to do so because it is always ahead of its competitors in terms of infrastructure.
AT&T: "Hey, they got one!"
if it wasnt for the iphone atts network would be fine. the ui is great good responsive touch screen but obviously the idiots at apple couldnt figure out how to utilize the current wireless tech. i have a nokia 5800, previously had a black berry both using att network, i never drop calls EVER!. apple sucks end of story
i wish someone would call the network by its actual name. 3g is a meaningless abbreviation. att's 3g is called UMTS totally different than anything that verizon does. I should make my own cell network and upgrade it 100 times so i can make comercials saying i have a 100 g network, instead of actually saying how fast it is in mbps
Do more of this, and less of this:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/18/atandt-loses-request-for-injunction-against-verizons-map-for-that/
Playing devil's advocate here, just a little:
"Smartphones". Not singular. Plural. This implies they have multiple smart phones that are popular. Mind you, not including the iPhone, compared to Verizon, AT&T does have better phones.
But this is because Verizon hasn't really had many good phones unfortunately.
As for "talk and surf at the same time", yes, as dumb as that sounds it can be a useful feature. Even passively used. If a call comes in, and you have a tethering going on, or some persistent connection, UMTS allows you to stay connected...
Regardless, this "fastest 3G network" from what I understand is a load of bullshit, since that's the THEORETICAL speed and their speeds in actual use are SLOWER than Verizon's since their infrastructure blows.
I'd also like to know why AT&T only cares about the application count of the iPhone. Did Windows Mobile, Symbian and Blackberry and Palm suddenly completely disappear off the face of the earth?
@Jouva - Actually, AT&T's 3G is generally faster than VZW's (when it's working, AT&T's that is). I can consistently get 1.5Mbps down on AT&T (on an iPhone 3GS) at my school while a BB Tour or Storm (original) gets >1Mbps in the same room sitting at the same desk.
Now of course most of the time my iPhone just plops itself on EDGE and stays there for no good reason... VZW is of course much, much faster then.
@MRCUR Thanks for the info on that.
Also you helped me find a bug in the new site. Apparently if I click on the link I get e-mailed when somebody replies, not only am I not marked as logged in, but it says _I_ replied to the message.
Ugg. Engadget is to Verizon as FOX NEWS is to Republicans.
Lame.
att blows as much as the phones it carries.
This is idiocracy!
"Talk and surf at the same time"
ambiguous language like this and AT&T thinks Verizon's maps are going to confuse the average consumer? pfft.
*shakes head* weak.......... AT&T is just embarrassing themselves trying to fight back. and wasting MORE money on ads that they could be using on their network. hmmm.....
@Jenna
More money on network? its not a question of money. in order to get towers up in congested areas, i am pretty sure you need permission from the local government to put it in any ones backyard. that alone is a lengthy legal process. and its funny how its the people that complain about the network are the ones who don't want the towers in their backyards. so its a no win situation for any carrier. so whats my point? stop bashing a service provider based on their marketing team, because i have to admit...att's marketing team is pretty trashy as oppose to big red's
Weak sauce.
My E71 works great on GSM/EDGE.
When I'm on the phone, I'm on the phone, if I really need to Google something I can call them back.
What really sucks are phones that you can't switch to 2G, since the 3G network is terrible.
But Luke Wilson never shaves.
Haha, I like how at 0:15 the "X" on "Access to over 100,000 apps" is already on the board but he hasn't stuck it up yet. Sloppy reply AT&T? How about just expanding 3g coverage, or not charging so much to tether. If you gave those same "smartphone" users access to tethering with their same "unlimited data" plan they already pay for the entire "real world" down here would praise you rather than make fun of you. And its cheaper than rolling 3g out all over the nation.
That was just LAME.
"Name that starts with the letter V"??? Wow, AT&T, you're seriously desperate and grabbing at air. That's the best you could come up with? Haven't you ever heard of the saying "don't bring a knife to a gun fight"? Except you didn't bring a knife... you brought a teddy bear.
Weak.
AT&T = Aching, Tired & Torpid
Okay for real world usage, I got a Verizon phone as a gift for Christmas last year and I struggled through using it. It had great coverage but not apps. So I paid the fee to leave and got an iPhone 3gs. I am thrilled. It smokes. I have terrific coverage. Granted I am not in the northeast or northwest where AT&T coverage is supposed to be the worst.
So in reality AT&T plus iPhone is a rocking solution but Verizon having a great network with no good phones is irrelevant. That is where this ad makes sense.
AT&T fail.... They keep saying they have the fastest 3G network but does it cover any part of the US? That's a bummer.
I'm with T-Mobile on my iPhone no need to get AT&T I'd barely get 3G service. I'm paying only $30 upfront per month for unlimited calling/texting/data... so peace
i cant believe luke sold himself out like that, luke, stop deceiving everyone, your mainly in edge, come to my town of litchfield connecticut, NO ATT AT ALL !!! yea, look at the map ! how about the national study by genius that proves att 30% iphone dropped calls, then how about no simultaneous talking and surfing outside of 3g. Come on Man... Tell ATT to put their money into fixing the problems, not wasting it on your figurative "ham sandwich"...
http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html
Request to open Iphone to all possible carriers here.
Note: Dont choose Luke to do your ads
After 8 years with AT&T and the worse service ever in the past 12 months, I switched to Sprint. AT&T's data service isn't as reliable nor as fast as Sprints. AT&T was the worse service in Austin, Texas I've ever experienced.