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Advertising Standards Authority: 128Kbps is broadband
Wednesday 26 January 2005 12:00:00 by Sebastien Lahtinen

The Advertising Standards Authority (www.asa.org.uk) is the organisation responsible for dealing with complaints regarding certain types of advertising such as press advertisements. It was asked by BT and members of the public to look into an advertisement from Telewest Broadband (blueyonder) which made several comparisons about its 256 Kbps service to BT Broadband's 512 Kbps service.

British Telecommunications plc and members of the public objected to a regional press four page wrap around advertisement, for a broadband service provider, that was headed "BLUEYONDER HAVE CUT THE PRICE OF BROADBAND". Text stated "The new service from blueyonder £17.99 You save up to £104 versus BT Broadband*" and "Free set-up and free modem+". The asterisk linked to a footnote that stated "Comparison made between Telewest 256k service and BT Broadband Basic 512k (£19.99 + £50 modem fee + £30 connection fee + BT line required" and the cross linked to a footnote that stated " Ownership of the modem remains with Telewest and it will be reclaimed if you cease to take our blueyonder broadband service". Text continued on the next page "Faster broadband for just a few pounds more than dial up our 256k service is the fastest home cable broadband connection available at the price".

Advertising Standards Authority, Adjudication (26/01/05)

The complaints were broadly regarding the comparison of BT's 512Kbps service with blueyonder's 256Kbps service, the suggestion that the modem was "free" (as it was just on loan) and that the description "faster broadband" was misleading due to the fact it was merely 256Kbps.

The ASA did rule against Telewest on a number of points which it felt weren't clear enough in the way footnotes were used, however it make two interesting and some might argue rather worrying statements.

Firstly, it said that comparing a 256Kbps service with a 512Kbps service was acceptable as they were both entry-level services. The advertisement compared savings over a year when using a lower speed service from Telewest against BT's higher speed service. Comparisons such as this would mislead consumers who are not aware of the differences in broadband services.

What is however more worrying is the ASA's reference to Ofcom's definition of 'broadband': "Ofcom defined broadband services as those that were always on, allowed simultaneous use of voice and data services and offered faster download speeds than dial-up services; they said services with download speeds of 128kbps and above were included by Ofcom in its monitoring of broadband take up."

Comparing dual channel ISDN speeds to broadband is highly misleading and whilst it's something we would expect from an ISP marketing department, to see an "independent" body such as the ASA using this as a definition of broadband, even taking into account its origin, is very disappointing considering most "broadband" marked video content is listed as requiring 300 Kbps.

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