KEY POINTS:
Telecom is waging war on Vodafone over claims the company has made about its W-CDMA mobile internet pace.
The Commerce Commission has confirmed that Telecom has sent it a written complaint over content in an advertisement which says "We have New Zealand's largest and fastest mobile network".
"I
can confirm that we have received a complaint from Telecom about the Vodafone ads representations regarding their WCDMA network," said Allanah Kalafatelis, communications manager with the Commission. "This complaint is under the Fair Trading Act."
She said the Commission will assess the complaint for any potential brief before deciding whether or not an investigation is warranted.
Vodafone external communications manager Paul Brislen slammed the complaint, saying Telecom's new network won't be ready until next year.
"Fastest - yes. Largest, well Telecom is yet to build, so yes," he said. "We have no plans to change the advertising at this point."
"Our 3G network covers 70 per cent of the population Telecom's network covers zero," he continued. "Vodafone's network runs at speeds of up to 7.2Mbit/s where we've deployed HSPA, Telecom's does not. In fact, Telecom is busy talking up how fast its network will go at launch (June next year) and yet Vodafone already offers speeds far greater than Telecom is talking about for launch. Telecom's own website says it will be between 2Mbit/s and 5Mbit/s download speed."
"Our view is that we do indeed have the largest and fastest 3G network in New Zealand today."
Not surprisingly, Telecom responded in kind with this statement from business PR manager Julia Bell.
"Telecom's EVDO 3G network is the most extensive in NZ," she wrote, "covering 80 per cent of where Kiwis live and work, whereas in July this year Vodafone announced that their 3G network footprint was around 63 per cent of New Zealand.
"Next year things get even better when Telecom's WCDMA network launches to cover 97 per cent of where New Zealanders live and work, with HSPA+ (Evolved High Speed Packet Access) capability providing maximum speeds of 21Mbps download and 5.7Mbps upload (with average speeds of 4Mbps download and 1Mpbs upload)."
A tit-for-tat battle like this could go on ad infinitum, so we want our readers to make the call:
Who do you think has New Zealand's best mobile internet? Take the poll on this page.