The ASA noted Bulldog considered that the inclusion of the words "up to" was an adequate indication to consumers that they might not achieve the top speed quoted in the ads and that their ads were in line with previous ASA adjudications and CAP guidance. We considered that "up to" was an adequate qualification in ads for 1 Mbps and 2 Mbps services, where the user would not achieve the maximum speed because of factors such as the number of people on line but where the attainable speeds were close enough to those advertised so as not to affect the customers' experience in any meaningful way.

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 8Mbps services could deliver were significantly affected by signal attenuation, which was 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. We understood that users of an up to 8Mbps service could take advantage of capabilities such as video streaming, file sharing and online gaming but that there would be a noticeable degradation of quality of the service when speeds fell below 6Mbps.

We therefore considered that "up to" was not an adequate qualifier in ads for higher speed services, given the impact that signal attenuation could have on speed and performance. We concluded that the ads were misleading and asked Bulldog to amend them.