Customers still fooled by "unlimited broadband"

 

Gallery

Posted on 23 Oct 2008 at 11:23

A new survey has revealed the word "unlimited" in broadband advertising is still tripping up customers.

According to the survey, conducted by YouGov for broadband comparison site Uswitch, 86% of people who've signed up for an unlimited broadband package still don't understand there are limits on their service in the form of fair-usage policies, or data caps.

The research suggests 6.2 million broadband customers take the advertising at face value, and wrongly believe they have a truly unlimited service. A further 7.5 million do manage to cast their gaze down to the small print, but one in four never read it, while the remainder claim to be no closer to understanding their limits even when they do.

This confusion led to one million customers either receiving a warning letter that they were approaching their limit, or smashing through it in 2007. This can lead to customers having their connection speed throttled or being forced to pay extra penalty fees.

"The solution is easy, broadband companies should not be allowed to class their packages as unlimited if they are not," says Tim Wolfenden, head of communications at Uswitch.com.

"Providers are confusing consumers to the extent that broadband users do not even know if they are exceeding a user limit. Broadband usage levels have gone through the roof as more and more consumers are using things such as on-demand TV services... As providers aren't choosing to be fully transparent about this issue, people need to be savvy when choosing their broadband packages and pay close attention to the small print."

Wolfenden blames the Advertising Standards Authority for this lack of transparency. He argues that until the ASA stops providers advertising their services as "unlimited" - even if there is fair usage cap - customers will continue to be misled.

The ASA was unavailable for comment at the time of publication.

For more on PC Pro's campaign to clean up broadband advertising, see the news section in this month's magazine - on sale now

Author: Stuart Turton