Following a Better Business Bureau investigation into Cingular's (now AT&T's) "fewest dropped calls" ad campaign and a protracted legal fight with Sprint over the issue, AT&T is reportedly dropping its claim, according to an employee.

Turns out, the assertion was never really true, and was based on only a small part of a larger Telephia report. As a whole, the report notes that AT&T Wireless did not have the most reliable network in places like New York, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles, according to Broadband Reports. Recent studies from Consumer Reports and JD Power mirror these findings, and have placed Cingular/AT&T at or near the the bottom of their rankings for reliability and satisfaction.

Update 8/23: An AT&T spokesman says that dropping the "fewest dropped calls" language is just part of an overall shift to a new message: "More bars in more places." Okay then!

DSLReports