Virgin Media complaint upheld
2nd July 2008
A complaint made by BT relating to an advertising campaign conducted by rival broadband provider Virgin Media has been upheld.
The Advertising Standards Authority decided that the ‘Hate to Wait?’ advertisement, which ran in national newspapers, should be banned after it was found that download times quoted in a table were in effect inaccurate.
BT had suggested that the figures, which gave download times for music and TV shows, were misleading due to download speeds at peak times being subject to Virgin Media’s usage caps.
According to the BBC, Virgin Media said in a statement: "We believe our Hate to Wait campaign provided a simple and transparent comparison between broadband speeds for consumers looking to choose between Virgin Media’s M, L and XL broadband packages."
The company was forced to change the ad to reflect the speed of downloading a TV show more accurately, but insisted their traffic management system "only focused on the heaviest downloaders and uploaders".
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2 comments
Thats funny, I have to pay £17.99 for 2Mb with Virgin Media.
STU, 2nd July 2008
I am an ex BT customer and I was so dissatisfied with paying top prices for little or no service so I changed to Virgin Media. They are superior in every way. My view on BT’s service is that they are rubbish and should be closed down. Thank you Virgin Media.
kennethgordon, 22nd July 2008