Just as last week was drawing to a close, the Government of Canada’s Competition Bureau laid the smack-down on Rogers for claiming their Chatr discount brand had fewer dropped calls and was more reliable than the new guys, like Mobilicity and Wind Mobile. Even though they’re facing charges up to $10 million for false advertising, Rogers is standing resolute – Senior VP of Regulatory Ken Engelhart said:
“We’re surprised by the actions of the Competition Bureau. We have extensive, independent third party testing to validate our claims and we stand by our advertising. We will vigorously defend this action in court.”
I’m tempted to agree with Rogers about the quality of their network, mainly since they’ve had such a huge head start on the new players to test and spread their coverage. Still, if the past is any indication of how this legal situation will play out, Bell, Telus and Rogers ran into a similar spat about reliability claims in advertising last year, each backed up by their own respective independent sources, which eventually ended with nobody claiming to be the most anything. The funny thing with Chatr’s case is that outside of the city, Mobilicity and Wind Mobile both roam on the Rogers just like Chatr, and as such are just as reliable. Of course, home zone usage is what really counts for these localized discount brands.
Chatr advertisements like the one above are cheap shots at networks that are still in development, but even if Rogers does have the most built-up network, there still needs to be enough room left for challengers to operate, otherwise we’ll never get out of this wireless cesspool of three-year contracts and absurd ETFs. In that spirit, I’m all for the Competition Bureau bringing this case to the courts, however, I’m not sure this false advertising charge is strong enough to put a dent in Rogers’ counter-offensive.