Broadband ad banned for false speed claims

The Advertising Standards Authority has banned a BT ad, saying there was insufficient evidence to support claims of 20Mb per second bandwidth.

According to the BBC, the ASA received 17 complaints about the ‘Adam and Jane’ advert, which states: “BT is rolling out up to 20 meg speeds to give you a consistently faster broadband throughout the day even at peak times”.

The complaints said that the claim was misleading, with others stating that the speed with which the ‘Jane’ character surfed websites was unobtainable on their BT connection.

“Because we had not seen sufficient evidence to support the claim that BT’s new broadband service was consistently faster than its existing 8Mb service even at peak times, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead,” read the ASA’s statement on the matter.

BT has said that it is “disappointed” with the decision, adding that “there was certainly no intention to mislead.”