Broadband

The Advertising Standards Authority has upheld a complaint from BT that Virgin Media’s recent Hate to Wait campaign was misleading.

The advert listed typical download times for a song and television show for its M (up to 2Mb), L (up to 4Mb) and XL (up to 20Mb) packages. The advert was designed to show that whilst a 5MB song and a 341MB television show would take 22 seconds and 26 minutes, respectively, to download with its M package it would only take 2 seconds and 3 minutes with its XL package.

Perhaps ironically for an ISP that has not taken the opportunity to reveal how, or if, it ’shapes’ its own traffic, BT complained that the advert did not make it clear that during peak times Virgin ‘throttles’ its heavy users, restricting their speeds so bandwidth is more equally shared among all users.

The BT complaint to the ASA stipulated that the advert was misleading because an M subscriber between 4pm to 9pm would have their connection throttled for downloading a 341MB show and, similarly, an L subscriber would be slowed down if they tried to download more than two shows during peak hours.

Whilst Virgin Media had mentioned that its connections were subject to a fair use policy, the ASA upheld BT’s complaint that the advert did not make clear that the download speeds mentioned would only be possible during off peak hours.

The adjudicating statement read: “We considered that one of the main objectives of the ad was to highlight the speed with which customers could download a TV show on all three of Virgin Media’s packages and, in the absence of any clarifying text, readers were likely to understand that those speeds applied at all times.

“We considered that the text “Acceptable usage policy applies” did not make the peak time restrictions clear and it would not be unreasonable for readers to expect to be able to download at least one half-hour TV show on the M package, or several half-hour TV shows on the L package, during the five hours of the peak time period without breaching Virgin’s traffic management system and having their speed capped. Because that was not the case we concluded that the ad was misleading.”

Virgin will now have to make sure its adverts are clearer and mention off-peak and peak download times if further comparisons are made. A spokesman for the company stood by its traffic management policy which he insisted, “helps ensure the majority of customers receive the quality of service from our fibre-optic broadband product by managing demand from the heaviest users at certain times of the day”.

Although BT will still not be drawn in to the specifics of how, or if, it manages traffic on its network, Talk Talk has admitted to having a policy somewhat similar policy to Virgin Media of warning its subscribers that they are using up more bandwidth than its fair usage policy stipulates and then reducing their connection speed. This only affects a tiny minority of its overall user base, the company insists.

“If you only occasionally have very high usage, we’re unlikely to be concerned unless it becomes a regular occurrence,” a spokesman for Talk Talk told Samknows.

“If this does happen then we’ll get in touch to help you find ways to reduce your usage. Ultimately, if your usage still remains excessive despite our attempts to help you reduce it, we may restrict your general Internet service throughout the entire day.”

Tags: ASA, BT, Talk Talk, Virgin Media