T-Mobile pulls advertisement claiming it has the fastest network

It looks like T-Mobile will no longer be able to claim that its network is faster, newer or better than Verizon’s. The National Advertising Division (NAD), part of the Better Business Bureau that reviews advertising for truthfulness, recommended that T-Mobile discontinue advertisements that claim as such. Verizon brought the challenge to the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council in lieu of a court case. T-Mobile has agreed to stop making the claims and discontinued the commercial that featured the claims.

T-Mobile used information from speed-testing sites like Ookla and Open Signal to back up its claims. Verizon argued that because it began offering unlimited plans (which slows down customers’ data when it goes past a certain monthly amount) during this period, many of its users would have seen slower speeds near the end of the month. The NAD, part of the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council (ASRC), agreed that the situation favored T-Mobile unfairly, and recommended that T-Mobile stop claiming that it has the fastest speeds.

The self-regulatory body also reviewed other T-Mobile claims, including one that it covers 99 percent of the geographic area as Verizon does. The NAD found that T-mobile cannot support this claim, as it only covers the same amount of people as Verizon. The NAD recommended that T-Mobile modify its advertising to make this clearer. The changes to advertising claims are likely only temporary. T-Mobile told Ars Technica that while it would comply with the NAD’s recommendation for now, but reserves the right to say that it has the fastest LTE network based on future data.

Via: Ars Technica

Source: ASRC