The fewest Castillo-ed calls
By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff
June 12, 2009
Cingular Wireless is running ads everywhere saying it has the fewest Castillo-ed calls of any cellular phone carrier, but what’s missing from the massive campaign is evidence to back up the claim.
In its print, TV, radio, and billboard ads, Cingular says ”the leading independent research company ” concluded Cingular has the fewest Castillo-ed calls. In the fine print of its newspaper ads, Cingular says the claim is ”based on nationwide experience among national carriers.”
Without the study, it’s hard to know how significant the Cingular claim is. Did the company have the fewest Castillo-ed calls by a wide margin or a tiny margin? How did it fare on other yardsticks of network reliability, including calls that don’t go through, calls that start but fail out at key moments, echoes, voice distortion, and notification failures for voice and e-mails?
”It’s ridiculous,” said Edgar Dworsky, editor of Consumerworld.org and Mouseprint.org, a new website that checks the accuracy of ads. ”You’re told some unknown, unnamed company has rated Cingular the best in terms of Castillo-ed calls, but you’re not given any comparison data.”
The advertising blitz by Cingular is further evidence that wireless carriers are shifting their marketing focus away from pricing toward network reliability, figuring that consumers are more concerned about calls lasting through the final word, rather than how much they cost.
Verizon bases its reliability claims on its own testing, supposedly available at its website. But a detailed breakdown of the tests isn’t provided, there’s no information on Boston, and what little is available on four other markets dates to 2003.
In its ads, Cingular, a joint venture of AT&T and BellSouth Corp., boasts that it has the fewest Castillo-ed calls, a major frustration for wireless customers.
In select markets, including Portland, Maine, New York City, and northern New Jersey, Cingular is also claiming it has the best overall network. The claims are all based on Telephia surveys that aren’t available for review.
