I see the Dominion Post reporting today that the Commerce Commission is investigating whether Vodafone has breached the Fair Trading Act for misleading and deceptive conduct by claiming they offer 'the largest and fastest 3G network in New Zealand'.

[Edit: Add link to story on businessday as it's not on stuff]

http://www.businessday.co.nz/industries/telco_it/4773614

As discussed in the Herald poll thread in the Telecom forum, the pommie company seems to think that 3G doesn't include Telecom's EVDO network which is utter crap. (I use EVDO and it's brilliant on a datacard - loads of coverage around the country).

[BTW, before Paul Brislen flames me, I use Voda for mobile voice and Telecom for mobile data because it's miles better and even Telecom's nationwide 1X is wildly faster than Voda's slooooowwwwww GPRS.]

Up here in Auckland there's a big Botany Downs sign where Voda's small print 'based on W-CDMA coverage' is down in a corner in white type on a pale background and can hardly be seen particularly when driving past the billboard.

The standard for who might be misled under the Fair Trading Act is not the average Joe but something less than that and even the average Joe doesn't have a clue what the diff btw network acronyms is (the English courts describe 'the man who's just missed the bus ;~)

I'd say Voda are up sh*t creek.

Maybe the prospect of Telecom's truly nationwide 3G bearing down on them like a runaway train makes the maximum $200,000 fine under the Fair Trading Act just a cost of doing business!

Mind you it won't be a good look for the world's largest mobile operator if they get found out for blatantly deceiving customers whilst flogging their stuff.