Verizon forced to pull ad that claimed firefighters need Verizon 5G

wildfire"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. 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.Though the NAD didn't review Verizon's discontinued firefighter and first-responder ads, the group found that several other Verizon advertising claims weren't supported by evidence. 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."In the 2018 controversy, Santa Clara County's fire department complained that it paid Verizon for "unlimited" data but was throttled during a wildfire response until upgrading to a more expensive plan.