U.K. wireless operator Orange plc claimed victory last week after a High Court judge dismissed a complaint made by Vodafone Group plc following the launch of a comparative ad campaign by Orange.
“It’s good to win the court case, but it was absurd to be in court in the first place,” said Hans Snook, group managing director of Orange.
“If the reactions of competitors are to try to muzzle you and go to court when you point out their tariffs are higher, something is wrong.”
Orange operates a digital network in the United Kingdom; it reports 573,000 subscribers, which is about 26 percent of the digital market. Vodafone operates both analog and digital networks; it claims 2.5 million total U.K. subscribers.
Last fall, Orange released advertising that stated, “On average, Orange users save 20 pounds per month” compared to the tariffs of competitors Vodafone Ltd. and Cellnet.
Orange claims the figure was calculated by taking all the calls made by Orange’s subscriber base during a one-month period, and comparing the charges for those calls with what they would be if a Vodafone or Cellnet tariff was applied.
The campaign angered Vodafone, which said that Orange’s claims were maliciously false. Vodafone filed a complaint and a trial was held last month. However, a U.K. judge July 10 issued a judgment that supported the position of Orange and ordered Vodafone to pay Orange’s court costs.
Vodafone said it was disappointed with the outcome of the case and is considering an appeal.
“The case appears to have turned on the judge placing a very narrow interpretation of the words in the Orange adverts,” Vodafone said. “The judge appears not to have accepted our view that anyone seeing the adverts would think that they would typically save 20 pounds per month by joining Orange. We are frankly astonished by this, not least because so many mobile phone users do not even spend 20 pounds per month.”
Using the court victory as a springboard, Orange said it is launching yet another campaign-for “straight dealing with customers.” Today’s wireless phone users are confused by the variety of tariffs and are dissatisfied with the service they receive. This hurts the industry as a whole, Orange said.
“We are today launching a campaign to fight for the issues we believe matter in our market. If that ends up in court again, so be it,” said Snook. “We believe there should be simple, easy-to-understand tariffs so that everyone knows how much it costs to use their mobile phone.
“Analog customers, in particular, seem, in effect, to be treated as second class citizens and we believe a great many of them could save substantially on the cost of calls by switching to Orange,” Snook said.
While the digital operators offer per-second billing, most analog customers are charged in 30-second or 1-minute intervals, Orange said.
“The significance of our campaign was to highlight the markedly different tariffs in the industry and the clear value advantage for Orange users,” said Lisa Gernon, Orange plc group marketing director.
“Since the campaign ended, Vodafone and the other operators have moved their headline tariffs toward Orange’s,” she said.
