Cell C set to fight for 4Gs
Cell C’s 4Gs network claims recently came under fire from the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) after Vodacom and MTN lodged complaints about Cell C’s use of the term 4G.
Vodacom and MTN argued that Cell C’s 4Gs marketing campaign is dishonest and misleading, and that consumers may mistake Cell C’s network as a 4G network. There were further complaints about the small size of the ‘s’ which forms part of the 4Gs claims.
The ASA today announced that they upheld the complaints from Vodacom and MTN, and ruled that Cell C has to stop any 4G/4Gs claims, and that it must withdraw all “unqualified and ambiguous ‘4GS’” claims in its advertising and marketing campaigns.
Cell C is however not going to let this go without a fight. Cell C today announced that it intends to appeal a ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) on the use of its 4GS logo.
“The ASA yesterday ruled that Cell C should stop using the term 4GS in its advertising material following complaints by both Vodacom and MTN. Cell C is naturally disappointed by the ruling especially as the ASA did not appear to take into account Cell C’s full and extensive responses to the Vodacom and MTN complaints,” Cell C said in a press statement.
“We will appeal the ruling because we believe that this amounts to corporate bullying,” commented Cell C’s CEO Lars Reichelt. “It is Cell C’s view that MTN and Vodacom lodged these complaints in an attempt to distract Cell C which has recently established a major competitive advantage in the marketplace.”
Reichelt said that the network Cell C has already rolled out in Port Elizabeth, Bloemfontein, East London, Cape Town and as of yesterday in Durban and Pietermaritzburg, is technologically superior, the speeds are demonstrably and consistently higher, the service experience is better with lower latency, and the customer experience in our stores is distinctly fresh and overall perceived as better by customers.
“In addition, we offer the best broadband pricing in South Africa, according to a comparison published on mybroadband.co.za, with 2GB available for as little as R83 per month,” said Reichelt.
“We use the term ‘4GS’ to describe not only our new network, but our overall value proposition, i.e. 4 Great Speed and 4 Great Service and the 4GS logo forms part of our advertising campaign,” added Reichelt.
“We have made it very clear on many occasions that our network is an HSPA+ 900 based network using Multi Standard Radio, running under Release 7. We can also clearly demonstrate that Cell C provides superior performance in terms of download and upload performance, with our new network already listed as the number one service provider in Port Elizabeth on Speedtest.net, the global leader in broadband speed testing and web-based network diagnostic applications.”
“In addition and contrary to operators overseas, eg. Telia Sonera, Telenor, Clearwire, Sprint, we are not claiming to have a 4G network. Our view is that the public understands very well that Cell C is now the speed and price leader in SA.”
Vodacom in turn said that they are supporting this ruling by the ASA which is to the benefit of South African consumers.
“The use of the term 4Gs to describe the same 3G technology already employed by other mobile networks is both confusing and misleading. 4G has a clear accepted definition and the data transfer speeds currently attainable by any network in South Africa are a fraction of this,” said Vodacom.
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