Verizon forced to pull ad that claimed firefighters need Verizon 5G - Ars Technica

Verizon's 2018 controversy over its throttling of a fire department's "unlimited" data plan during a wildfire didn't stop the carrier from rolling out numerous ads claiming that Verizon service is a must-have for firefighters and other emergency responders.

"Verizon committed to permanently discontinue its '5G Built Right for Firefighters' and '5G Built Right for First Responders' advertisements and the challenged claims made therein," the National Advertising Division (NAD) said today in an announcement of the complaint's outcome.

The NAD said it didn't actually review the firefighter and first-responder complaints on their merits because Verizon agreed to pull them before an investigation.

But the "5G Built Right for Firefighters" and "5G Built Right for First Responders" ads no longer appear on Verizon's YouTube channel.

A commercial-tracking website provides a transcript for the now-discontinued "5G Built Right for Firefighters" ad, which apparently debuted in January as Verizon rolled out a 5G-focused Super Bowl ad campaign.

A Verizon VP admitted Tuesday that the lower-band 5G speeds are "similar" to 4G, so there's no reason to think it will give firefighters or anyone else a big advantage over Verizon's 4G LTE service any time soon.

As the NAD said then, "Verizon does not dispute that its current 5G service is limited.

While Verizon has more recently expanded 5G coverage, that NAD statement from July described the same millimeter-wave coverage that Verizon was touting as a game-changer for firefighters earlier in the year.

At the same time that Verizon was claiming its 5G lets firefighters stream video from inside fire-engulfed structures, Verizon 5G in reality was "primarily restricted to outdoor locations in certain neighborhoods." In today's announcement, the NAD said it once again "recommended that Verizon clearly and conspicuously disclose the limited availability of its 5G service.".

Verizon said the department had chosen an unlimited data plan that gets throttled after using 25GB a month but admitted that Verizon failed to follow its own policy of "remov[ing] data speed restrictions when contacted in emergency situations.".