Virgin takes another hit from ASA

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 8 Apr 2009 at 10:49

The Advertising Standards Authority has rebuked Virgin Media once again, after the company issued another series of advertisements drawing unfair comparisons between its fibre service and copper broadband.

The complaint was brought by Sky which was irked by a Virgin advertisement which read: "Only three out of ten homes in the UK can get 8Mbits/sec or more over BT phone lines. Ten out of ten homes our fibre optic broadband can get 20Mbits/sec."

Sky brought its challenge on the back of its belief that there wasn't enough capacity in Virgin's network to provide all customers with 20Mbits/sec connections at the same time.

Virgin pointed to the advertisement's small print which drew the distinction between access line speed - the maximum speed a connection can reach and that being quoted in the ad - and actual throughput speed, which refers to the speed actually received.

It claimed the ad was intended to show that all homes on its fibre network were capable of achieving its headline 20Mbits/sec, unlike those customers on ADSL whose headline connection speed is dictated by distance from the exchange and other factors.

The argument didn't hold any water with the ASA however. It ruled the smallprint worked to contradict rather than elaborate on the main body of the advertisement.

It also argued it was unfair to compare the actual access line speeds of ADSL over BT lines, with the theoretical access line speeds of cable broadband as stated in the ad.

The ASA has ruled the ad must not be used again.