Telecoms.com
news
Verizon told to stop lying about its 5G offering
Ever keen not to be out done by rival AT&T, Verizon has manged to get told off for making misleading claims through its 5G marketing.
AT&T famously pushed its luck by rebranding its 4G service as 5G, for which it was universally ridiculed. The US advertising authorities eventually got around to telling AT&T to pack it in over a year later and then languidly turned their attention elsewhere. Specifically the National Advertising Division was prompted by an AT&T complaint a look at a couple of Verizon 5G TV ads.
“People from midtown Manhattan to downtown Denver can experience what your 5G can deliver,” claimed one of the ads, while depicting people performing astronomical speed tests all over the country. NAD found that this made false implications about both the general availability of its 5G service, and in the specific locations featured, and told Verizon to stop lying, which it promised to do.
It has, however, only been a couple of months since Verizon last played fast and loose with the truth, resulting in an almost identical reprimand. There don’t seem to be any actual punishments dealt out for this duplicity, so we wouldn’t be surprised to hear about a Verizon ad claiming its 5G makes you stronger, smarter and more attractive before long.
The full extent of Verizon’s dishonesty on this matter was exposed by recent Opensignal numbers, which revealed that Verizon 5G is available to just 0.5% of its subscribers. This is because Verizon has decided to focus on high frequency spectrum, which has very short range. It’s therefore correct to prevent Verizon from trying to have its cake and eat it by inferring anything other than very limited availability of its 5G service.
37 comments
Leave a comment
Events
5G Core Summit
- 18-20 May 2021
- View Event
Asia Tech Digital Symposium
- 17-17 June 2021
- View Event
Cable Next-Gen Europe Digital Symposium
- 22-24 June 2021
- View Event
Loading ...
Korea aims to chip away at Taiwan's semiconductor dominance https://t.co/W295LmfgDu #Components #chips
14 May 2021 @ 10:48:02 UTC
Rakuten Mobile eyes 'tremendous profitability' ahead https://t.co/yLgLbntSiF #ORAN #5G
14 May 2021 @ 09:33:02 UTC
Google Cloud takes SpaceX to the edge https://t.co/KDi4Pr5InT #BSSOSS #Cloud
14 May 2021 @ 09:33:02 UTC
No wonder Trump banned Wawey, to give these two enterprises a chance
Or maybe… in the words of Bill Barr “China will make tens of trillions with 5g. WE CANNOT ALLOW THAT..”.
You mean Huawei. The Chinese owned communication company. Good thing he did too. China would be stealing everyone’s information more than they already do.
Technology will move forward. Politians
can only support or impede. The US of A has been monitoring world communications for years before Facebook and the like. The Trump administration is just suspicious that China might.
When the US can’t compete with China, they just fake it and then ban them. Seems to make sense if you’re a socialist dicktatership, Trump supporter.
Samsung isn’t owned by the USA, so your point doesn’t stand, next time you blurt out things check your facts before you do, last time I checked the USA still uses Samsung phones so let facts talk before your non existent ideas of how things work.
Stop it. Can’t you see that we need to come together as a people. I get your frustration sir, we are ALL feeling it. Do you expect Trump to be Jesus? Or do you just not believe in anything anymore? I understand that as well. Stop getting online to bash people & take your own inventory. Go out & do things to serve your community ( if you aren’t) already. Go vote. Peaceful protests are one thing but this sh*t is just bananas. Praying for you now.
Haha.. dicktater.
I’m surprised autocorrect didn’t catch that one.
Please read up on what socialism actually is. There is nothing socialist about the Trump regime except for how he socialises the blame he rightfully receives.
Are you implying that U.S. mobile service providers companies don’t have or can’t implement the 5G technology, yet. And the Chinese were going to rescue us from falling behind technologically.!!
I wouldn’t say that, only Verizon is having a hard time deploying 5g.
In the 6/30/2020 OpenSignal report the article is referring to:
T-Mobile 22.5%
Sprint 14.1% (has since been shut down with most of the coverage relaunched on T-Mobile and the remainder to follow shortly)
AT&T 10.3%
Verizon 0.4%
As you can see T-Mobile is sitting very pretty right now.
Verizon is a joke any way you look at them! My service sucks. Our local stores, depending on who owns the Verizon store, decide if they want to help you or not.
Mobile service is expensive. For as much as we pay per month, our service should be top-notch! Something to strive for, Verizon!
Those Verizon stores are a mixed bag. I will only go to a corporate store. One of their ‘authorized’ outlets sold me (I bought it of my own free will) a protection plan for a screen protector i bought for an LG V10 back in November 2015. I couldn’t cancel it when I wanted to. The entity which was supposedly insuring the screen protector was unresponsive. It wasn’t until I canceled my debit card because of fraud concerns that the insurer of my screen protector began contacting me. It was a sweet and memorable moment.
Verizon has no control or say of a reseller or authorized agent. If you go to a non Verizon store, you aren’t dealing with Verizon. Just someone allowed to sell Verizon service and products..
Well, authorization can be taken away, so if Verizon wants to pull up a shady dealer they can.
Verizon Is not smart when their authorized distributors are not monitored, and Verizon is responsible for whatever bad service rented by these stores who had to sign an agreement with Verizon Wireless to conduct business under their name.
Oh, you’re right. Once I completely understood the dynamic I avoided those authorized dealers.
Love our Verizon service. I will be patient and wait for the 5G in my area. Looking forward to the 5G home connect so I can kick Spectrum to the curb.
Yep me to Verizon never let me down
when you talk to the people on the phone at Verizon,They are very nice and can’t understand why the people in the stores treat you so poorly. That’s wrong they’re supposed to help you, I’ve Been Told.
Their customer service can be confounding. Back in 2018 I had a confirmed pre-order for a 8GB/512GB Note9 in my preferred color, blue. I had placed that order two minutes after the process opened up.. Some time later just as those pre-orders began moving I noticed that nothing was happening with my order. The money had been withdrawn from my checking account then replaced two days later. I tried calling and reasoning with customer service to absolutely no avail. To say that I was disappointed is putting it mildly. Since that time I’ve established an account with Xfinity Mobile and I’ve (slowly) moved two of my lines to their service. I realize that Xfinity Mobile uses Verizon’s network but the satisfaction comes from paying significantly less for practically the same reliable service. I’ve got three more lines to move over. I may cast-off one of those but the day is approaching when I’ll be free of Verizon’s indifference.
Most “Verizon stores” are actually authorized retailers that aren’t directly accountable to Verizon. They’re simply authorized to sell Verizon products, build stores that look official, and have limited access to accounts.
I can’t believe people still go to the Verizon stores corporate or independent in 2020. Most of the time calling directly will get you better deals and better support with 1 or 2 day shipping. Why do people even bother with the stores? Their business model is to get you to buy overpriced stuff they don’t care for the most part.
I found the service people in the Verizon store was extremely helpful. He set up everything for me. When I walked out, my phone was working perfectly. Later when I got water inside my phone and it didn’t work, it was a Verizon person who suggested that I could buy another phone for much cheaper at Walmart. And, again, the Walmart person set up my new phone. I use a pay as you go service and I have never had problems with my Verizon service.
No one comments about how poorly this article is written? Does anyone proof read anymore? Is English the writers first language?
Equating Verizon’s stretching of the truth (which will come true once their network is built out & what tech company doesn’t talk about the future?) and AT&T’s outright lying calling 4G, 5G when it shares not a bit of the technology, are not even close when it comes to order of magnitude of falsehoods.
Verizon cell service continues to be the best in 95% of the US (guesstimating). If you feel it isn’t great where you live, clearly you didn’t research available services before signing a contract. Shame on you. .
As for Verizon stores there are 2 flavors, corporate owned and authorized dealers. Corporate stores are the way to go. Authorized dealers can be great or very poor. You never know what level of service you’ll get. Like buying a Ford and complaining because the shady mechanic down the street, who says he works on Ford’s, did a crappy job repairing it.
And China? Flat out evil. They’ll steal ANYTHING. Thankfully the world is waking up to this fact.
Flavours
Writer’s
‘guesstimating’?
Fords
Flavors is the American English spelling. Apologize for the apostrophe in Ford’s. The old spell check did it to me. Also, I am not a supposedly professional writer and was not paid for my comment. I presume you were paid and perhaps should have a little more professionalism and read your own material. I agree with the other commenter. Very one sided article and you should probably find a different career field. Sorry I hurt your feelings. Grow a thicker skin if you are going to put yourself out there as a tech writer.
No
Verizon outright lied about it’s coverage in the commercials which is no different than AT&T outright lying about the technology it’s using. What Verizon showed was nowhere near the actual 0.4% 5g coverage it has.
As for LTE, Verizon stands at 97.4% availability while T-Mobile is nipping at its heels with 97.0% availability and AT&T sits at 94.9%. There is no real difference between Verizon and T-Mobile regarding nationwide LTE availability, it’s whatever works best for you locally. The same can be said for any carrier though.
So true they talked to me this weekend on that phone telling me it came with this dual screens and a case till I signed the papers then he told me I have to go on line and order one 3 to 6 weeks without a case but they said it came with it .5G does not work here. 1000 dollars for a fruad
Your workers are con men should sell cars for a living. Us older ladies get screwed everytime
This is one of the most one sided, information lacking, slanted, and poorly written articles I have seen in quite a while. It reads like some elitist snowflake wrote it with sarcasm and contempt just dripping for those evil corporations. That just happen to provide jobs for thousands of people, innovate new technologies, and invest BILLIONS in infrastructure each year. Next time, try to write something a little more informative, with a little less smarmyness, that’s a bit more mature journalism.
No
LOL, you just keep thinking that.