Wireless phone company T-Mobile has agreed to stop marketing its 5G network as “more reliable” than its competitors following a suggestion from the National Advertising Review Board and a complaint from rival Verizon.
The complaint stemmed from an online video featuring William Nye, better known as “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” in which he touted that T-Mobile’s decision to use mid-band spectrum made its 5G network more reliable than Verizon’s decision to use milli-meter wave spectrum.
“Other carriers have 5G signals that drop if you move two feet,” Nye said in the video, which was produced by T-Mobile.
Nye demonstrated Verizon’s supposedly inferior 5G service to T-Mobile’s by using mannequins. Verizon complained to the National Advertising Review Board (NARB), which is part of the not-for-profit Better Business Bureau.
The NARB said T-Mobile shouldn’t imply that Verizon’s 5G service “is so limited in any area as to cover only the space taken up by a single bench,” according to a decision handed down earlier this week. But the board said T-Mobile could continue to make claims that its network coverage is better than Verizon’s in future ads.
On Monday, a T-Mobile spokesperson said the company would abide by the board’s decision and affirmed its appreciation “that the panel agreed that T-Mobile can continue to advertise its superior 5G coverage without qualification.”