Pocket Watch

Yesterday, AT&T Mobility said that they were shocked, shocked! at T-Mobile USA calling HSPA+ “4G”, instead of waiting to affix that name to an LTE protocol network.  OK, fine, it’s their job to complain about stuff like that.  But, what I don’t get is, why kick sand in the face of the 34 million subscriber T-Mobile, while letting 93 million subscriber Verizon make a mockery of AT&T with their Red and Blue 3G coverage maps?

Verizon Picks "Interesting" 3G Definition.

If you look at the definitions for the construction of the maps, Verizon has defined “3G” for AT&T Mobility as HSPA only, despite the fact that the International Telecommunications Union includes EDGE in their definition of “3G”.  The ITU is part of the United Nations, for goodness sake — if they don’t transcend petty capitalist squabbling, I don’t know who does.  And, look at who Verizon takes their definition of 3G from: the vendor who sold them the protocol, Qualcomm, which sounds like the fox guarding the chicken coop to most consumers.

Instead, AT&T attacks Verizon because the map seems to imply AT&T doesn’t have voice coverage in all those white areas on the map?  Why not attack them from a position of strength (“here’s what our 3G map looks like using industry standard definitions”), instead of a position of lameness (“we think consumers are too stupid to know the difference between voice and data”)?