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Telus sues Rogers over wireless speed claims

Telus sues Rogers over wireless speed claims

By:  Greg Meckbach  On: 18 Nov 2009 For: Network World Canada Creator

The Vancouver carrier is asking for an injunction that would force Rogers to stop publishing advertisements claiming it has the fastest or most reliable wireless network in Canada. Rogers will not back down from its claims and plans to defend itself in court.

If Telus Corp. gets its way, the future could be quite unfriendly to the wireless marketing executives at Toronto-based Rogers Communications Inc.

 

Vancouver-based Telus is suing Rogers for allegedly misleading ads claiming it has the “fastest network.”

 

Telus recently launched its High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) wireless network, which it built in a partnership with Bell Canada Enterprises Inc.

 

 

On Wednesday the carrier released a court document – originally filed Nov. 12 – asking for an injunction that would force Rogers and its agents to stop making statements in advertisements that Rogers either has “Canada’s fastest network: 2X faster than any other” or that Rogers has “Canada’s most reliable network.”

A Rogers spokesperson said the company stands behind its reliability claims and looks forward to defending itself in court.

"All of our internal and third party testing since 2007 has consistently demonstrated that we have the most reliable network," the spokesperson wrote to Network World Canada. "Telus has not submitted any data on their network performance."


Telus is asking for punitive damages and that Rogers be forced to reimburse Telus for money it spent investigating Rogers’ conduct.

 

Toronto-based Rogers had already been providing cellular service using HSPA, which is based on Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). Previously, Bell and Rogers had been offering EVDO (the high-speed version of Code Division Multiple Access, or CDMA) but wanted to be able to offer service for a wider variety of handsets, such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone, in time for the Winter Olympics.

 

Telus filed a statement of claim with the B.C. Supreme Court alleging Rogers ads running after the Telus HSPA launch Nov. 5 were misleading.

 

The allegations have not been proven in court.

 

 

Telus claims in its court filing that since Nov. 5, it has been using a “newer” HSPA network than Rogers and it provides “more coverage to more of Canada than do the HSPA or HSPA+ components of Rogers’” network.


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Tags: HSPA, Telus, Rogers, iPhone, wireless
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Greg Meckbach Greg Meckbach Greg Meckbach is editor of Network World Canada and has worked for ComputerWorld Canada, Communications & Networking and Computing Canada.

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