http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13963473
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| Quote: Virgin Media has been reprimanded by the Advertising Standards Authority for an online campaign accusing rival broadband services of "conning" customers. The campaign, called "Stop the broadband con" was aimed at changing the way other broadband providers advertised their services. BT and Sky complained and the ASA ruled in their favour. It means the campaign cannot appear in its current form again. The website launched by Virgin included a letter from Richard Branson, claiming rivals were "not keeping their promises", a speed test, and links to Ofcom's official broadband report. It also featured a video, parodying Sky's broadband advert. It encouraged users to share the information with their friends and it was this viral element of the campaign that allowed the ASA to apply its advertising rules to it. "We considered the ad went beyond highlighting the disparity Virgin believed existed between advertised broadband speeds compared to those that were delivered and implied that other ISPs dealt with consumers dishonestly in relation to broadband speeds," the ASA ruling said. Virgin Media argued that its campaign was intended to highlight "widespread dissatisfaction among consumers about the advertising of broadband speeds." | |
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I have to say I do say they have a small point in their favour about how they are marketed. the term "Upto" is so abused. Though I have been with Vermin Cable and have switched to Sky Unlimited ADSL. Both were 20 Mbit services and while Sky is around 14Mbits I am delighted with the service. I have only had a couple of outages and only for a few hours. I had long outages with Vermin when there was a problem. Add in the fact that I am not throttled means that I can stream TV whenever I want, rather than having to move iPlayer outside peak hours.
