Virgin Media admits its basic broadband is slower than rival
 

Virgin Media admits its basic broadband is slower than rival but BT ad still lied

BT's cheapest offering is faster than VM and Sky but smaller players boast better speeds.

BT has been rapped on the knuckles by the UK's advertising regulator, following a complaint made by Virgin Media over misleading claims about broadband speeds in several of its rival's adverts.

As part of its gripe, Virgin Media had to admit that its own entry-level broadband speeds were slower than BT's.

During April, a series of BT ads on television, in print media, and online claimed that BT Infinity "now offers speeds of up to 52 Mbps—the fastest fibre speeds as standard." BT was able to offer 52Mbps due to a new 52Mbps service offered by Openreach since January 2016; other ISPs could also resell the same Openreach connections.

Each of the ads made comparisons either to Sky or Virgin Media broadband speeds, claiming BT offered faster speeds than the other firms' "standard" or "entry-level" packages. They also featured graphics of speedometers, demonstrating BT's supposed superiority over its competitors.

However, this assertion prompted a complaint from Virgin Media to the Advertising Standards Authority, in which the cable company argued that "the ads implied that BT’s up-to 52 Mbps service was the fastest maximum speed for a lowest-priced tier available in the UK." It said that the claim was misleading given that some smaller providers offered faster speeds at their lowest tiers.

Following an investigation, the ASA agreed by upholding Virgin Media's complaint. It acknowledged that BT did indeed offer entry-tier broadband speeds that were faster than Sky's or Virgin Media's, at 38Mbps and 50Mbps respectively, but that it did not offer the fastest package on the market.


Full story: http://arstechnica.co.uk/business/20...s-advertising/

Re: Virgin Media admits its basic broadband is slower than rival
 

The real irony here for me is that VM's 50Mb actually supplies higher throughput than BT's 52Mb, they just advertise it as being lower.

Re: Virgin Media admits its basic broadband is slower than rival
 

Bottom line is unless you're talking FTTP VM will always trounce BT. But at least VM are rolling out FTTP.

The only reason BT and other ADSL resellers are any real competition to VM is network reach.

This is the whole point behind the VM expansion programme.

Re: Virgin Media admits its basic broadband is slower than rival
 

Well that, pricing, bundles, etc. The majority still don't take the 76Mb but stick with the 52Mb / 38Mb packages.

VM have about a 40% market share in their passed areas.

Re: Virgin Media admits its basic broadband is slower than rival
 

Bt Grossly overcharge for 76mb, I settled for the 52

Re: Virgin Media admits its basic broadband is slower than rival
 

VM could easily beat BT here by increasing their minimum speed offered for new service to 60 Mb/s

Re: Virgin Media admits its basic broadband is slower than rival
 

Odd, I thought the tiers were 70, 150 & 200 these days ?

Re: Virgin Media admits its basic broadband is slower than rival
 

70 and 150 were only part of that boost thing, new customers or anyone changing package can only get 50, 100, 200 or 300.

Re: Virgin Media admits its basic broadband is slower than rival
 

I was on the 150 tier and for some reason Virgin have bumped up the speed today.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...?ts=1476910524

Re: Virgin Media admits its basic broadband is slower than rival
 

Thats interesting.

Re: Virgin Media admits its basic broadband is slower than rival
 

I'm on 200mb and the router says 230000000 bps for downstream and 12700000 bps for upstream. Is that normal or has there been tinkering going on?

(edit: no matter, just looked in the internet section and this is normal)