Watchdog bites Bulldog over broadband claims

The ASA ruling could have wider implications for the industry

Broadband provider Bulldog has been savaged by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for a series of press and TV ads promising 'up to 8Mbps broadband'. 

The ruling could have wider implications for the industry, as many providers quote their speeds with the prefix 'up to'.

As well as complaints from two customers, cable broadband firm NTL questioned the claims and provided figures showing that only users living within 3km of the exchange would receive 8Mbps broadband. 

NTL gave the example that the 35 per cent of customers in an area who lived more than 3.8km from an exchange would only get a 5Mbps connection at best.

Bulldog argued that its ads were in line with previous ASA adjudications and CAP guidance, which required claims about broadband speeds to be preceded with the words 'up to' to indicate that the top speed might not be achieved by all users. 

The company provided figures from July and December 2005 showing that more than half of Bulldog customers achieved speeds of 6Mbps or higher.

Despite backing from the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre, the ASA found against Bulldog on the grounds that the ads breached the CAP code on substantiation and truthfulness and the broadcast rules on misleading advertising.

"The ASA considered that 'up to' was an adequate qualification in ads for 1Mbps and 2Mbps services," said the ASA ruling.

"We considered that the higher speed service was likely to be attractive to consumers because of the advertised headline speed and the potential capabilities that a connection of that speed could give users.

"We understood, however, that the speeds which the 8Mbps services could deliver were significantly affected by signal attenuation caused by distance from the exchange, and that as a result a significant proportion of consumers could not achieve speeds close to the headline speed."

Bulldog was ordered to amend the adverts to indicate that top speeds varied significantly, in particular because of a user's distance from their local exchange.