In a nutshell, Verizon said AT&T’s request to have the ads pulled is without merit. From the court filing (PDF):

AT&T did not file this lawsuit because Verizon’s “There’s A Map For That” advertisements are untrue; AT&T sued because Verizon’s ads are true and the truth hurts… AT&T now is attempting to silence Verizon’s ads that include maps graphically depicting the geographic reach of AT&T’s 3G network as compared to Verizon’s own 3G network because AT&T does not like the truthful picture painted by that comparison.

In the court filing, Verizon outlines the reasons that AT&T’s arguments are without merit. They include:

• Because the ads are truthful, AT&T is attacking them under faulty theories, including a claim that they are misleading. But Verizon says there’s no real evidence – aside from an AT&T commissioned survey – that proves that consumers are misled by the ad.
• There is no emergency that would require the court to issue an immediate restraining order – as AT&T has requested – without giving Verizon the opportunity to conduct its own research and present evidence to prove that consumers are not being misled.
• The harm to Verizon and the public, in general, caused by pulling the ads is greater than any alleged harm being inflicted on AT&T.

Read more about this topic by Sam Diaz at ZDNet

ATT Wireless recently launched its A-List, which is their version of “your 5″ (or 10 if you have a large family talk plan). A-List lets you add commonly used phone numbers (landline or mobile) to your “A-List” and essentially have those minutes be unlimited and not count against your plan. While this works so far for most people, others have noticed that it worked early on and not any longer with Google Voice numbers.

I personally use a Google Voice number as a mobile office number. Not primarily for the free calls, but more so for the transcription features it offers. When a user calls in to my Google Voice number, if they leave a message, Google will translate that as best it can to text and send me an email or SMS text message with the attached audio file and text from the message. This has proven invaluable when in a meeting, watching a movie, etc.

Here are the promoted features for this service:

So now for the good part. ATT, being the typical large corporation that they are, is blocking heavy users from using an in-bound Google Voice number. They are letting you your Google Voice number to your A-List, but tagging it in their system as an anytime-minutes call, while reducing your monthly available minutes if you receive a call to your Google Voice number.

I fail to see how this is in any way different from my choosing to forward an office phone (which I do via follow me features) when out of the office. To me, there’s no difference. I have a choice as a consumer to let my customers reach me wherever I am.

For some additional background, when ATT first came out with its A-List offering (which is only available to larger plans, by the way), I called up ATT and asked if they cared that I planned to add my Google Voice number to my A-List, explaining that it would ultimately lead to unlimited calls if customers or friends called me through my Google Voice number. One two separate occasions when talking to an ATT customer service representative, the unified reply was “We don’t care. That’s what it was designed for” (to sum it up in so many words).

How then, does ATT reserve the right to publicize an offering with clearly spelled out rules on its website, yet go against those rules? I (for one) feel another FCC investigation coming, along with the possibility of another class-action lawsuit. Just because you’re a large company doesn’t mean you can walk all over your customers.

Join the discussion here.

I welcome discussion from ATT on this post and invite them to comment. I’d like to know how they can justify something like this. It doesn’t seem right.

Informational Resources:

• ATT A-List landing page
• A-List FAQs

Other News:

• NY Times’ Pogue: Verizon, AT&T scamming mobile customers by charging for…
• FCC considers realigning access charge rules

Contest URL: $1,500 Thanksgiving Giveaway
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So why couldn’t Twitter release a premium level of its service that grants paid users a greater level of access to the platform, additional features, more API connections, etc?  This seems the logical next step.  The main service would remain free as it always had (even I didn’t need to upgrade until now), but a handful of the Twitter power users would benefit from near-real-time Twitter updates with applications such as TweetDeck and mobile devices for the iPhone or BlackBerry such as Tweetie, Twitterific and TwitterBerry.

Here is some simple math that I’ve worked out.  The numbers seem fairly reasonable so far and I welcome comments on this model.  TwitDir reports 3,328,420 twitterers that they know as of today.  I’ll use this as the base number for my calculation.  If we estimate that there are 3.3 million Twitterers out there sharing ideas, and only 5% of them are power users that require a more powerful level of Twitter power (166,421), paying only $2.99/mo…

That’s almost a half a million dollars of revenue for Twitter and all they had to do was scale up a few servers and spend a few hours coding the management/login area for users.  Hardly anything else needs to change.  The infrastructure has already been layed out and is operational.  If they wanted to, they could charge $4.99/mo for a different tier of service and offer other incentives to those users that required even more.

I’ve found myself leaving TweetDeck open on both my Mac (home) and Windows PC (work) and constantly use Tweetie on my iPhone.  There go all my API connections for the hour…they’re used up in about 30 minutes even with moderate usage.

The bottom line, would we pay for this service?  Is it so necessary to the way that we network now that users would jump into paying for it, or do we only use it now because it’s free?  My vote is for the same level of service to remain free, but offer additional options to their already-ginormous user base.

Comments welcome.

I noticed through correspondence that it was Newegg that placed the order, but the fullfillment was actually through World of  Watches.  It’s interesting to see how they’re leveraging third parties to handle the completion of the orders and expanding their inventory in the process.  Amazon pioneered this model years ago and it seems other companies are following this business model today.  If it works, why deviate, right?

The pricing was the bottom line.  I received a $595 watch for $100.  When taken to the local Fred Meyer jewler to have it sized, I was told that no jewler in the area could possibly have done better in their pricing and that the watch I received was “among the best”.

What’s even more impressive is that Newegg’s re-sold rate for the watch that Word of Watches was fullfilling from its inventory was better than the pricing on World of Watches’ own website.  You can’t beat that!

I would rate their service level at Newegg Mall a 9/10 simple because of their call center having to dispatch my request or call to a customer service rep when I call in, then the rep calls me back.  They’re quick to call back, but it would be less irritating and tedious if I were able to reach a customer service representative at the time of calling in the first time.

Check out Newegg Mall today.  They rival companies like Overstock.com, Buy.com and Amazon.com and were polite when contacted for customer service.

I’ve witnessed the speed of the internet on a laptop using a jailbroken iPhone lately, and I must say…it’s fast.  The iPhone 3G is connected to one of the quickest carrier networks out there (second only to Sprint’s WiMax I believe), and I’ve seen DSL rivaling speeds.

It’s been said that the carrier will also be likely to charge additional fees for the service or to use the application to cover costs.  I’m sensing this idea of “double dipping” starting to pop up again.  I posted about this a week ago with Verizon trying to do this with SMS messaging not originating from mobile devices.

Read:  Verizon to stunt mobile growth for a few bucks?

I mean, they’re already billing you for so-called “unlimited” data.  This has been discussed for many months in relation to various carriers (not just AT&T) and is starting to irritate the hell out of consumers.  You have a sales guy in the retail store telling you it’s “unlimited data” and signage all over the store also stating the term “unlimited”, yet we have the carrier’s terms and conditions for service stating something like this…

If you are on a data plan that does not include a monthly megabyte allowance and additional data usage rates, the parties agree that AT&T has the right to impose additional charges if you use more than 5 GB in a month.  Prior to the imposition of any additional charges, AT&T shall provide you with notice and you shall have the right to terminate your service.

Increasingly, Internet providers across the country are placing such limits on the amount of data users can upload and download each month, as a way to curb a small number of “bandwidth hogs” who use a lot of the network capacity. For instance, 5 percent of AT&T’s subscribers take up 50 percent of the capacity, spokesman Michael Coe said Tuesday.

To that I say:  ”Why did you say it was unlimited, then?”.  This screams false advertising, doesn’t it?  Let’s just call it what it is.  I sense a class action lawsuit coming of many.

Gizmo5 (owned by SIPphone in San Diego, CA) does all of this and so much more.  Not only can you make free internet calls from your home pc or mobile phone, but it integrates ALL of your instant messaging programs into one while letting you do it, supporting Gizmo5, MSN, AIM, Yahoo! and Jabber…for free.  Other supported features include video calls, file sharing and two-way text messaging, allowing you to send SMS messages directly from your Gizmo5 account.

As an iPhone 3G user, I get pretty decent cellular coverage in the Portland, OR metropolitan area, but it’s not always reasonable to use the ATT network for my calls…especially long ones (both inside the US and outside the US).  Gizmo5 answers this need perfectly.

I opt to use Fring as my iPhone VoIP software on the iPhone when connected to a WiFi network.  Fring allows me to leverage multiple platforms beyond what even Gizmo5 lets me have access to in terms of on-the-go voice.  So if I wanted to, I could make calls over Wifi with the iPhone to Gizmo5 users (similar to the other companies), or I can tap “SIP” after dialing a number to reach an outside line.  Call quality is crystal clear and I haven’t had a dropped call once.

Did I mention how much I’m saving at home talking on Gizmo5 SIP over the ATT minutes in my plan?  I’m seriously considering dropping the level of plan that I have just because of this.

It’s rare to see a company that’s encompassed so many needs in one single application.  Big thanks to SIPphone for giving us one application for an incredibly low overhead to accomplish mobile business in today’s mobile world.