Broadband News

TalkTalk is to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority tomorrow that BT’s latest ‘up to 20Mb’ advert is ‘misleading’ and based on poor research.

The crucial point is the advert claims BT’s broadband service is ‘consistently faster even at peak times compared with the industry average’.
TalkTalk claims its investigations reveal just 20 lines were tested, over only a single week, during the school holidays, which it believes is not sufficient to make categorical claims about being faster than ‘the industry average’, as determined in the recent Ofcom report, which uses a  different methodology.

A spokesperson for TalkTalk contrasted the approach behind BT’s advert with those of Ofcom’s report.

“When you look at the thoroughness of the Ofcom study which examines a scientifically selected panel of one thousand six hundred homes around the country for more than six months, it just bears no resemblance to what BT has done,” he said.

“They’ve looked at just twenty lines over a week! How on earth do they expect to be able to come up with an industry average from that? Ironically, in the Ofcom study, which we think is compiled under a far better methodology, BT didn’t so well.”

A true test?

The spokesman also pointed out that by setting up the test itself BT could have known which lines were to be tested which would potentially render the data compromised. TalkTalk went further to suggest the advert itself is ‘misleading’ because it does not mention availability. In promoting its up to 20Mb ADSL2+ service BT does not point out that even by the end of Spring next year it is only likely to be available to around 55% of the population.
BT is waiting until TalkTalk officially lodges its complaint with the ASA tomorrow before making any comment. 
Alex Salter of SamKnows commented: "We are delighted with this new focus on Average Speed. We've been campaigning for a long time to shift the focus away from "up to", which we feel is misleading.

“We look forward to the ASA's response on this as they have a real opportunity to make a difference here. This is not an issue isolated to BT's recent adverts, all ISPs advertise 'up to' when the reality is few customers (if any) will be able to achieve these speeds. SamKnows would be happy to independently check BT's actual performance.”