High Speed Broadband Ads Must Be Clear About Top Speeds

Companies offering high speed broadband will have to make clear that top speeds will vary significantly depending on location, after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld complaints about a Bulldog TV and press campaign offering broadband “up to 8 meg”.

NTL complained that the press ad was misleading because the maximum speed quoted would not be available to a large amount of people within the areas where the service was available.

NTL provided figures which showed that as the distance between a local exchange and a customer’s home increased, the available broadband speed decreased.

In addition, two members of the public said that the TV ad was misleading because the broadband speed was not achievable for all users.

In response to the complaints, Bulldog said their ads were in-line with previous ASA adjudications which required claims about broadband speeds to be preceded with the words “up to” to indicate that the top speed might not be attainable.

However, the ASA upheld the complaints as, although it considered that “up to” was an adequate qualification in ads for 1Mbps or 2Mbps services as users not achieving these maximum speeds would notice no great difference, users unable to achieve 8 meg would see a notable degradation of quality when speeds fell below 6Mbps.

The ASA ruled that “up to” was not an adequate qualifier in ads for higher speed services, given the impact that signal attenuation could have on speed and performance.

ASA: 020 7580 5555 www.asa.org.uk