Sprint files a lawsuit over AT&T's deceptive "5G Evolution" marketing campaign

Two of the biggest network providers of the United States, AT&T and Sprint, are getting ready to clash over AT&T’s 5G E marketing stunt.

AT&T renamed it’s advanced 4G LTE network to “5G Evolution“. This goes as far as appearing on customers phones as 5G E even though the 5G technology is neither available nor supported by the phones or other mobile devices.

One of AT&T’s main competitors Sprint has filed a lawsuit in a New York court. Sprint considers the 5G E label to be misleading. Selling an unavailable product to customers would offer an unfair marketing advantage to AT&T, as well as damage Sprint’s 5G network investment. Sprint representatives argue that the 5G E tag is deceiving customers into buying AT&T product and services. Its arguments are based on a survey which suggest that over 50% of customers believe the 5G E to be “as good or better than” 5G networks. Sprint is hoping for AT&T’s 5G E commercials to be considered as unlawful and false advertising and to be submitted to a court mandated order to stop the deceitful marketing tactics. Furthermore Sprint is hoping to be repaid for damages caused by the discussed commercials. Other competitors such as Verizon and T-mobile also criticized AT&T’s 5G E marketing strategy.

AT&T doesn’t believe its commercial to be deceiving and is fighting the lawsuit. In a statement AT&T said: “We understand why our competitors don’t like what we are doing, but our customers love it,”.

It will now be up to a court to decide if the 5G E commercials are purposefully misleading customers or if they are to be considered as legal marketing practice.

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Image : "5G Funkstandard mit Schein und Funksymbol" by Christoph Scholz licensed under ShareAlike 2.0.

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://blog.economie-numerique.net/2019/04/10/sprint-files-a-lawsuit-over-atts-deceptive-5g-evolution-marketing-campaign/

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