Telus Defeats Rogers in Court [Telus Granted Temporary Injunction Over Roger’s “Canada’s Most Reliable Network” Ads]

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By now you should be familiar with the whole drama between AT&T and Verizon which we covered extensively here on TFTS. And it looks like Canadian carriers have decided to go to war too. I am talking about Telus and Rogers, two very powerful wireless services providers in Canada.

While AT&T sued Verizon in the USA for allegedly misleading ads, Telus has done the same thing in Canada. Telus has sued Rogers with similar claims. The company alleged that Rogers’s ads are misleading as they suggest that Roger’s network is faster and more reliable than Telus’ network. Telus has been referring to those ads in which Rogers is claiming to be “Canada’s most reliable network”, a network that happens to be “two times faster than any other.”

Telus is particularly annoyed with these ads as it has just launched its brand new 21Mbps HSDPA network and thus it’s able to match the speeds and reliability offered by Rogers. Telus did ask Rogers to remove its ads but the latter hasn’t complied. What followed was only natural and very predictable. Telus filed a suit with the Supreme Court of British Columbia against Rogers.

Rogers defended its ads by saying that Telus hasn’t offered any data to support the fact that Telus’ network offers a similar performance to Rogers’s network. But apparently that wasn’t enough in court.

Telus has been granted a temporary injunction that might force Rogers to stop those ads. Mr. Justice J. Christoper Grauer ruled in favor of Telus saying that: “the technological advantage that allowed Rogers to represent that it has Canada’s most reliable network has disappeared,” and continuing the ads would be “misleading.”

While AT&T failed to win in court against Verizon, Telus has defeated Rogers, at least for now. But all those rulings are still temporary. AT&T will continue to argue its case in court and so will Rogers. Who will win? It doesn’t really matter at this point since consumers should be the actual winners. Fierce competition like this should lead to better network performances and overall better services for the subscribers of the carriers in question.