Ofcom and ASA to aim for an end to misleading broadband speed adverts in the UK

After much deliberation and consultation with Ofcom, it looks increasingly likely that the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority will aim to ban ISP’s from making claims of ‘up to’ speeds in their advertising and marketing campaigns.

Following lengthy debate, the Communications Consumer Panel, which forms part of the telecoms industry regulator Ofcom, has asked for the ASA to effectively put an end to any advertising that misleads UK consumers about the sort of broadband speeds they can realistically hope to get.

The ‘up to’ claims in advertising and marketing promotions has long been a bone of contention with broadband consumers, many of which have no hope of getting anywhere near some of the speeds quoted in frothy ads. Some ISP’s, including Virgin Media, have also been in favour of a more transparent means of promoting the speeds that are genuinely achievable by customers with broadband internet accounts.

Asked by CNET to comment on the situation, Chris Marling, editor of Broadbandgenie.co.uk, said: "The end of 'up to' speeds can't come too soon - they are very often misleading and inaccurate. When BT can offer some of its customers speeds close to 40Mb, and others less than 1Mb, depending on which exchange they happen to live near, it is clearly farcical to group them all together under one headline 'up to' speed.

"In truth, 'up to' 20Mb can mean 0.2Mb - as a phrase, it doesn't really mean anything. An ISP has a duty to give customers an estimate of their line speed when they enquire about its service. Before this, consumers shouldn't be enticed in on meaningless speed promises - a speed of 1-2Mb will actually be more than adequate for many broadband customers, as long as it is consistent.

At Broadband Genie we would love to see the majority of ISPs move away their obsession with speed - what consumers really need is quality of service - including customer and technical support, reliability and choice of products."