BT in trouble after Virgin Media sneaks to ASA

Revenge is sweet

9 October 2008 17:19 GMT / By Katie Scott

It's all getting a little tit-for-tat in the world of broadband suppliers.

In July, BT made a complaint about a Virgin Media ad campaign, which featured download times for songs and TV shows.

BT said that it was not made clear in the ads that Virgin's usage caps meant that downloads during peak times would be slower than advertised.

Virgin Media subsequently got its knuckles wrapped by the ASA.

But now it's got its revenge after complaining about one of BT's ads, and the ASA has now acted by forcing the latter to pull it.

Virgin Media took issue with an ad which claimed BT had been named as the "Best performing Broadband provider, again", among leading UK ISPs.

However, the small print under the ad explained that this was measured solely against other ADSL broadband providers, and Virgin Media, as a cable modem broadband provider which does not use ADSL technology, is not one of these.

Virgin Media therefore claimed that the ad was misleading and the ASA has upheld the complaint.

The ASA said, "The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told BT to ensure that future ads featuring a "Best Performing Broadband" type claim should be immediately qualified by the term 'ADSL', if the claim was specific to ADSL broadband".