AT&T engages in ironic marketing spat with T-Mobile
Well, this is quite interesting. It wasn’t that long ago that AT&T and T-Mobile were all buddy-buddy as the former tried to swallow the latter up in a major (but eventually failed) acquisition deal, but it looks like the status quo has been restored. AT&T has released a new newspaper ad — with full-page spaces in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today — showing “the truth about T-Mobile’s network” compared to its own.
AT&T notes how T-Mobile has twice as many dropped calls, twice as many failed calls, and 50% slower data then its own network. AT&T’s data claims might be a tad substantiated considering the growing 4G LTE network it’s building, but those claims won’t last long as T-Mobile is just about ready to build out its own. And we’re not sure what AT&T’s basis for the claims of dropped and failed calls are, but it assures us its data has been backed up by independent, third-party testing.
The fact that AT&T is attacking T-Mobile head-on isn’t too shocking — after all, the wireless industry here in America has been known to be quite nasty when it comes to marketing. We’re just surprised AT&T was so blunt in this particular campaign after it had nothing but praises to shower on the fourth-largest US carrier while the two were still in bed. I guess that just goes to show that you’re only friends in business when you really, really want something.
[via Bloomberg]