ASA bites T-Mobile over home broadband ad

The Advertising Standards Agency has ruled that a T-Mobile advert which implies that mobile broadband offers the same quality as fixed-line services could mislead consumers.

A member of the public registered a complaint with the advertising watchdog after having received a flyer from T-Mobile that claimed its mobile broadband service offered “All the benefits of home broadband, on the move. No wires, no waiting, no worries.”

The ASA said the flyer may mislead consumers into thinking that mobile broadband would offer the same speed and reliability as a fixed-line connection, and that consumers would therefore view it as a suitable alternative. Whilst mobile broadband technology has come on leaps and bounds over recent months, it is still neither as reliable nor as fast as a typical home broadband connection.

T-Mobile argued that the leaflets referred to the capacities of mobile broadband, not its speed, and “maintained that they did not make any claim that implied a direct technical comparison to fixed-line broadband.”

However, the ASA disagreed. In its adjudication the watchdog stated: “We understood that mobile broadband was unlikely to offer speeds comparable with those of a high-speed, fixed-line service and that, due to the technology’s reliance on obtaining a signal from mobile-telephone networks, it could not guarantee the same continuity of service.

“In particular, we were concerned that activities such as streaming, downloading and online gaming were unlikely to be available to mobile-broadband users to the same standard as to fixed-line broadband users.”

As a result of the complaint, the ASA has ruled that T-Mobile can’t run the same ad in the future and must “avoid the implication that their mobile-broadband service was of a comparable standard to fixed-line broadband.”

Share This: