Rogers Accuses Bell of False Advertising… Bell Carries on, Business as Usual
By James Falconer on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 8:25 AM PST In Bell Mobility, Rogers
Remember when you were a little kid, and you accidentally hurt your buddy while playing around outside? What did he do after he got hurt? He told his mom. That’s kind of the way things go. Seems as though a little spat is going on now between Rogers (NYSE: RCI) and Bell, and I can only assume that mom (in this case the Canadian judicial system) will take care of everything.
Rogers is accusing Bell of a bit of false advertising. In a recent campaign Bell printed that they had/have the ‘fastest and largest network across North America’. A hefty claim that would surely demand some numbers to back it up right?
Rogers filed a complaint to Advertising Standards Canada (ASC) to complain about the ’speed’ portion of the statement. When the hearing on the matter came to be, Bell did not participate or show any evidence to back up their claim. Bell, you gotta talk this through!
Interesting to note here as well, is that Rogers and Bell operate on 2 completely different types of networks. Bell runs EVDO and Rogers runs on HSPA. Despite that, Rogers still pressed forward with their complaint.
Long story short, the ASC decided that ‘the general impression communicated by the claim was that the Bell wireless network was faster than its competitors in each of the countries that make up North America, including Canada.’ In response Bell said that all of their advertising complies with all Canadian legal requirements and have continued to use the advertising as is. The ASC is now moving forward to pass judgments that should stop Bell from using said advertising materials… But we’ll see. In Bell’s eyes it looks like they think they’ve done nothing wrong.
Me? I’ve got no problem with it, provided they can show some hard numbers to back up the claims. I wouldn’t just throw down some crazy ‘we’re the fastest, best… we’re amazing’ claims in advertisements without being able to back them up. That would be silly… Right?
[Via: MobileSyrup]
James,
Rogers has the fastest network in Canada as it capable of speeds up to 7.2 MBPS. Even if Bell were running EVDO Rev. A it would max out at 3.1 MBPS. As for largest… That depends what you’re going by. Number of people, cities and townships, square km, etc.
I think to be correct, they need to change the advertising to “Canada’s fastest CDMA Network, using Nortel equipment”