The IT Nerd

Wind Mobile and Mobilicity were pretty ticked of about the existence of Chatr. It lead to a complaint to the Competition Bureau, and today the Competition Bureau responded:

The Bureau’s investigation, which involved an extensive review of technical data, obtained from a number of sources, led the Bureau to conclude that there is no discernible difference in dropped call rates between Rogers/Chatr and new entrants.

“We take misleading advertising very seriously,” said Melanie Aitken, Commissioner of Competition. “Consumers deserve accurate information when making purchasing decisions and need to have confidence they are not being misled by false advertising campaigns.”

Oh, but it doesn’t end there. Rogers is in deep trouble over this:

The legal proceedings are being brought before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice under the misleading advertising provisions of the Competition Act. The Bureau is asking the court to order Rogers to:

• immediately stop the advertising campaign and refrain from engaging in similar campaigns;
• pay an administrative monetary penalty of $10 million dollars;
• pay restitution to affected customers; and
• issue a corrective notice to inform the general public about the nature and provisions of the order issued against them.

Needless to say, Wind Mobile and Mobilicity are over the moon when it comes to this. Both released statements today. First, Wind Mobile:

“As longstanding champions of wireless choice for Canadians, we are very pleased that the Competition Bureau has come to this conclusion and we applaud its decision to stand up for Canadian consumers and their right to accurate information,” said Anthony Lacavera, Chairman of WIND Mobile.  “This signifies another important milestone in the ongoing fight for fair wireless in Canada.”

The misleading ads by Rogers’ Chatr claim that Rogers’ Chatr has fewer dropped calls than the new entrants, a claim which WIND disputes. “WIND Mobile has built a state-of-the-art, all-IP 3G+ network,” said Ken Campbell, CEO of WIND Mobile. “We are very proud of the quality of our network and could not allow unsubstantiated and misleading claims about its quality go unchallenged.”

Next Mobilicity:

“We commend the Competition Bureau for taking action on the complaints that Mobilicity initiated months ago and we are committed to continuing to lead the way to ensure fair competition. It seems that the government of Canada, the governments of Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba, and about 31 million Canadians are fed up with the Big 3.  We believe they are fed up with high prices, lousy service and high-handed attitude.  Today alone, Rogers was hit with a massive lawsuit by the Competition Bureau and they even called the police on Mobilicity’s Magenta Militia singing dance troupe.  We invite all Canadians to join Mobilicity in this fight for consumers.”

You have to believe that Rogers must be sorry that they decided to start Chatr. I’m sure they’ll fight this in court, but I haven’t got any word of that from my “best friends at Rogers.” Perhaps they should just make their main Rogers brand a better value rather than try to muddy the waters with another brand. That would have been a better strategy to fight the new cell phone providers in my humble opinion.

This entry was posted on November 19, 2010 at 10:13 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Lawsuit, Rogers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.