Posted: 22nd May, 2003 By: MarkJ
Unsurprisingly the UKs largest cable operator, NTL, has appealed to have yesterdays ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) overturned. The ASA found that NTLs 128Kbps service could not be classified as 'broadband':
Attacking the ASA ruling, the cableco claims that the watchdog's ruling on what does, and does not constitute broadband, was based on the opinions of six computer magazine editors. "Their response, we must assume, was that they believed consumers would consider broadband to mean a service at speeds of 500K and above," said NTL.
It claims this approach was biased and not an accurate way of gauging what punters believe broadband to be. Independent research commissioned by NTL found that just 4 per cent of those quizzed said that broadband operated at speeds in excess of 500k.
Bill Goodland, Director of Internet at NTL Home said: "The ASA's research was superficial and flawed. To base any definition of broadband solely around some arbitrary speed limit is simply naive. This ruling should be thrown out."Is the ASA wrong? Technically speaking an ADSL connection could run at 64Kbps downstream, would you still label that as broadband?
It might be a broadband technology, but doesn't this just confuse the market? Do most people even know what broadband is? What if
Oftel passes it's new "
256Kbps or more" definition?
We've got a heck of a lot more questions than we do official answers, that's the only sorry fact. More @
The Register.