The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld two complaints by ISP Sky Broadband (BSkyB) against a direct mailing advert for products from Virgin Media . In the advert, which listed ten reasons why VM was better than Sky, the operator claimed that: "Delivering TV, broadband and phone down the same fibre optic cable is better value and keeps everything in one simple bill." Naturally Sky did not agree.

Interestingly Sky's defence for their main complaint was to suggest that fibre optic technology would not offer inherently better value for customers and that the majority of their packages were cheaper than Virgin's. That's a rather bold claim to make given that most fibre optic broadband networks have yet to be built. Happily the ASA focused on service value instead.


The ASA also upheld the complaint against a part of Virgin's advert that suggested Sky customers could not receive a single bill for Sky services, which was not the case.