Telus suing Mobilicity; cell phone companies at each other's throats

Telus Corp. is suing wireless new entrant Mobilicity for what it alleges are “false and misleading” claims made in a new television advertisement.
Vancouver-based Telus, which filed its notice of civil claim with the Supreme Court of British Columbia, is seeking an injunction to block Mobilicity from running the TV spot, which began airing across Canada in late November.
The lawsuit, which comes during the height of the pivotal holiday shopping season, signifies how competitive wireless carriers have become in the smartphone era. Although Mobilicity‘s ads do not specifically name Telus or any other wireless competitor, Telus claims the spot contains a trio of “misrepresentations” that damage its brand.
In particular, Telus is taking issue with the commercial’s claim that “what you see isn’t always what you get” with other wireless networks with respect to unlimited offers.
Moreover, Telus alleges that Mobilicity claims to offer wireless services with “no contracts” even though its services are governed by service terms and conditions. The lawsuit also alleges that Mobilicity makes a “false” claim of offering unlimited data – even though its data plans are subject to a fair use policy that authorizes the carrier to use throttling to slow down the data speeds of heavy users.