Rate your broadband service!

Happy with broadband? Or is it letting you down?

Rate your broadband ISP here >>

Virgin Media ad rubbished by ASA

The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) has upheld a complaint by rival BT for a Virgin Media “HATE TO WAIT?” ad.

The advert showed download times for various types of files, for the different levels of Virgin Media tariffs.  For example, it showed that a customer on the basic 2Meg, size ‘M’ package, could download a (5MB) song in 22 seconds and a (341MB) TV programme in less the 26 minutes.  On the top end 20 MB ‘XL’ package, Virgin Media claimed 2 seconds for the song and under 3 minutes for the programme.

BT challenged the claims as being misleading as Virgin Media applies a traffic management policy during peak hours which would restrict download speeds of users who download large files during those times if it affects the network performance.

BT argues that the customer would not be able to download songs or TV programmes in times shown during those hours.

In response, Virgin Media said the traffic management policy only focussed on the heaviest bandwidth users.  It also argued that each package is aimed at different types of users, so 2Mb users would typically not download that much material during peak hours, whereas heavy downloaders on the 20Mb package benefit from a higher threshold (800MB) so customers would be able to download 614 songs before the traffic management kicks in.

They did however admit an error in the ad where the file sizes for the song and TV show in the small print of the ad had been written as Megabits (Mb) rather than Megabytes (MB).

Despite submitting calculations and explanations on the download speeds quoted, the ASA upheld the complaint as the ad did not make clear that on the M package, the 26 minute download time was only possible during off-peak hours, or by downloading one full TV programme during peak hours a customer would automatically be in breach of the download limits for the M package.  On the L package, although customers could download two TV programmes in the time stated, the ASA thought Virgin’s traffic management policy was just as restrictive.

The ASA advised Virgin to make clear that download times would be restricted during peak hours in future ads.