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ASA Slaps Vodafone for Mobile Broadband Speed and Reliability Claims

Posted: 29th Oct, 2008 By: MarkJ
The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld several complaints by members of the public, Three (3) and T-Mobile against two national press adverts for Vodafone's Mobile Broadband service. Vodafone used the promotions to claim that its service was not only the "most reliable" (1), but also "fastest" (2) and "light years ahead" (3) when compared with its competition.

Naturally Vodafone's competitors’ and some members of the public clearly disagreed and all three primary complaint areas were upheld. It's worth pointing out that Vodafone's evidence was based on independent speed trials conducted by LCC (here). The ASA made the follow conclusions:

1. "most reliable".

We acknowledged that Vodafone might be able to provide the most reliable service based on the nationwide average of the criteria LCC had tested, but we considered that, because the ads did not make clear the basis of the claims, it would not be clear to readers how the claims had been measured. We concluded therefore that the ads were misleading.

2. "fastest".

Because we understood from the LCC trial that another mobile broadband provider offered an up to 7.2Mbps service, we concluded that the absolute claim to offer the 'fastest' maximum download speed for mobile broadband service in the UK was misleading.

3. "light years ahead".

We concluded that, because readers would understand it was based on both the speed and reliability of the Vodafone service, and because we had not seen evidence to support those claims, the claim "mobile broadband that's light years ahead" was misleading.

However, we disagree with the "fastest" complaint being upheld because most independent studies, many of which are admittedly quite anecdotal in nature, do appear to show that Vodafone offers the fastest real-world Mobile Broadband performance. Vodafone has also issued its own response:

The ASA has today published its adjudication on Vodafone UK’s mobile broadband advertising. The ruling does not question the factual validity of Vodafone’s ‘fastest and most reliable’ mobile broadband advertising claim, which is based on a study commissioned from LCC, the world’s largest independent wireless engineering company, nor does it challenge the validity of the LCC results.

The LCC study involved independent mobile broadband testing across the UK, between March and May 2008 (See below for further details). However, the ASA is recommending, that these claims are supported with further qualification to enable readers to understand the basis of the claims. Vodafone UK has agreed do this.

“Funding independent research to determine the quality of our network is crucial for Vodafone UK so it can help customers make informed purchasing decisions around mobile broadband. It also further informs our continued multi-million pound 3G network investment plans, as Vodafone UK is committed to delivering quality, speed and reliability,” comments Ian Shepherd, Consumer Director, Vodafone UK.

The following key findings from the LCC report have been displayed by Vodafone to help substantiated the adverts:

  • Up to 77% faster when downloading a 2MB file (compared to slowest operator performance): On average Vodafone UK’s download speeds on mobile broadband are 1.2Mbps/13.54seconds compared to 764kbps/21.44 seconds for Three, 683kbps/23.99 seconds for Orange, 812kbps/20.17 seconds for 02 and 993kbps/16.15 seconds for T-Mobile.


  • Up to 278% faster to open a web page (compared to slowest operator performance): On average Vodafone UK’s mobile broadband takes 6.7 seconds compared to 12.7 seconds on Three, 7.45 seconds on 02, 7.8 seconds on T-Mobile and 25.67 on Orange.
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