A number of BT Infinity adverts last year were misleading, according to a new ruling from Britain’s advertising watchdog the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA).
The adverts, which were run in August and September last year on TV stations, in print media and on the Internet, ran afoul of the regulator over the use of the word “unbeatable”.
“BT infinity lets you do more online at speeds four times faster than Sky’s typical broadband. Share photos and videos with friends at unbeatable speeds,” said a BT advert voiceover that appeared on television.
Virgin Media and three others complained and challenged whether the “unbeatable” claim made by BT was in fact misleading and could be substantiated.
The ASA however felt that the word “sharing” could refer to a one way or two way exchange of information – i.e. upload and download speeds.
“Therefore, while we acknowledged BT’s statement that the claim was a top parity claim, we noted we had not seen evidence that BT’s download speeds were unbeatable, and concluded the claims in the ads had not been substantiated and were misleading,” said the ASA.
It ruled those adverts must not appear again in their current form. BT did not respond to a TechWeekEurope request for comment at the time of writing.
This is not the first time that ISPs have run afoul of the incredibly touchy subject of broadband line speeds.
In early April guidelines designed to stop telecoms firms misleading consumers in ad campaigns were released in a bid to clamp down on unrealistic speed claims.
And in February, Ofcom called on ISPs to be more honest about their speeds as in the past, providers have defended their right to use ‘up to’ claims, justifying them by saying speeds varied from line to line.
In August 2010 BT was rapped over the knuckles for a TV advert that made misleading broadband speed claims. That advert featured the BT “Adam and Jane” couple, which filmed Adam being shown around a house by an estate agent as he talked to Jane on his mobile phone.
Prior to that BT was pinged for one of its fibre adverts that boasted its fibre-based service could deliver the Internet ‘instantly’.
But BT is not alone here. In June last year, Virgin Media was censured by the ASA over its ‘Stop the Broadband Con’ website and an Internet banner advert, after they were judged to be misleading.
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It's interesting that although Virgin wasn't the only party to complain about the adverts BT chose to specifically retaliate at them for their dissatisfaction of the ASA's adjudication.
Personally I found their spokesman's statement quite contemptuous of the ASA for which I would like to have seen a shot put across their bow for, in escence, arguing against the judgement in a cowardly and underhandedfashion.
As for BT's claims, It's easy to claim 4x faster than average internet speeds when the average customer is handicapped by the service provided via ADSL over BT's own lines.
In effect they are only able to make their claims because their non-fibre service's performance is so poor!
How can BT be faster than that of Sky Broadband? or any ADSL service? they all use the same phone line which is rented by BT! Furthermore, the speeds can only be throttled to a certain point because the distance from the exchange and line quality dictate your up/down speed
Also,
BT are a shower of $hit and always will be.
Brendon, you're confusing ADSL broadband with Infinity Broadband, the difference between the two is thus...
1) ADSL Broadband - this service is provided purely over copper telephony cables, and as far as I know is not capable of delivering speeds greater the 24Mbps (ADSL2) and is VERY sensitive to how far you are from the telephone exchange, the nearer you are the better basically.
2) BTs Infinity is not available in vast swathes of the country and quite frankly they shouldn't be allowed to advertise it's availability in my opinion, other than by post to households that can actually receive it. The difference with Inifinity is that from the telephone exchange to the 'internet' the signal will travel on much higher speed and capacity fibre optic cable, but from the telephone exchange to your house it'll travel over copper telephone cable. So it will still be to some degree senitive to the distance from the telephone exchange. Basically this is BT's answer for now versus the cost of rolling out a purely fibre optic solution to the whole of the UKs homes. Which (we all have to accept) will be hugely costly and time consuming to deliver. It would potentially create considerable disruption on roads all around the country as well, so it'll perhaps only be the government that'll be able to put in the boot on that one, and then only when the good times are rolling again, certainly we can forget it at a time of recession.
In the news article it references Virgin Media, well like with BT there are vast swathes of the country not cabled up, but at least with Virgin Media the fibre gets wired to the home so realistically Virgin Medias service will for now at least be far more likely to be quicker than BTs offering.
Actually both are fibre optic networks. The only difference is that on Infinity the fibre extends to the street cabinet. The cable into the house remains the plain old telephone cable, with ADSL replaced by a higher speed version of DSL.
In my view the claim that Infinity is fibre (any more than ADSL) is misleading.
Bt Infinity is faster than sky broadband (purely because it is fibre optic). People should be very careful when they sign contracts from any of these companies. All this article proves is how low they are willing to stoop for your money.
HelterSkelter
Quote " BTs Infinity is not available in vast swathes of the country and quite frankly they shouldn’t be allowed to advertise it’s availability in my opinion"
So what your saying is Virgin should not be allowed as we not everyone can get it. I live in Essex all my life and have move 3 time since 1999. Basildon Laindon and Wickford which are big town not villages. Not in 1 street I have been able to get virgin fibre optic but at every house I have had letter though saying the it available in my area. As soon as you check on-line or phone it will say or they will tell you sorry it in not available in your area and offer you the same as BT/sky broadband.
You must really live somewhere in the back end of nowhere, HelterSkelter. I live in Cornwall and we have Fibre to Exchange. Don't confuse it for Fibre to Home, which many ISPs won't do unless you live in London.
BT No complaints from me Im now getting 74 Mbps download speeds with bt infinity,i was only getting 5 mbps when I was with AOL.
Im not in a cable area so no option with any virgin fibre optic services