BSkyB and BT force Virgin Media to drop unlimited broadband claim

[Qtx]

Now the ASA echo's what many of us have said about Virgins misleading unlimited claims *shock horror!*

Now can we have less of those threads with people claiming Virgin broadband is unlimited

I hope Sky, BT and the other unlimited providers have a dig about VM's limited broadband in one of their next adverts

Perhaps this will push them down the route of under promise over deliver. From what I have heard the network can deliver far higher than 120 right now, so they could for example advertise 60, deliver 120 then even if throttled you get the advertised speed at all times?

However the ban is only for the current advert and it looks like they are trying to get clarity on what can be considered moderate which is a shame

[Qtx]

Possibly coincidence that they posted an announcement about change of traffic management policy? When I saw today's date and title I thought it may say they were removing the limits but alas, just a 10% reduction rofl.

We've just updated our traffic management policy for all of our customers on 30Mb and above. The new policy means you'll see a temporary 40% reduction in speed instead of 50% if you're traffic managed. The change is being rolled out now and will be in place across our network over the next few weeks.

---------- Post added at 18:22 ---------- Previous post was at 18:18 ----------

Doesn't matter if your Core network can handle higher speeds if you have bottlenecks closer to customers, which is exactly the problem Virgin have.

Another banned/misleading advert. Up to about 40 for Virgin in the last 2 or so years?

This could potentially be a disaster for a company that relies on misleading PR to get customers connected.

Originally Posted by Qtx

Possibly coincidence that they posted an announcement about change of traffic management police? When I saw today's date and title I thought it may say they were removing the limits but alas, just a 10% reduction rofl.



---------- Post added at 18:22 ---------- Previous post was at 18:18 ----------

Doesn't matter if your Core network can handle higher speeds if you have bottlenecks closer to customers, which is exactly the problem Virgin have.

Another banned/misleading advert. Up to about 40 for Virgin in the last 2 or so years?

This could potentially be a disaster for a company that relies on misleading PR to get customers connected.

Will probably be a new approach once the Liberty deal is concluded at that point they will be the largest operator in Europe, Liberty have already re built their network in Southern Ireland so could potentially do the same in the UK

[Qtx]

There are rumours that VM changed the traffic management today as a way around the ruling.

“Virgin Media's traffic management policy reduced users' download speeds by 50% if they exceeded certain data thresholds and we considered that this was an immoderate restriction to the advertised ‘unlimited’ service. We therefore concluded that the claim ‘Unlimited downloads Download and browse as much as you like with no caps and no hidden charges’ misleadingly implied that there were no provider-imposed restrictions on a customer's ability to download data” wrote the ASA.

The watchdog concluded that Virgin’s advert “must not appear again in its current form.”

VM can now say that they only slow down customers 40% instead of 50% and that may be enough to make the ASA think unlimited is ok. Seems wrong.

Upload speed is to stay restricted at 75% though. That restriction alone could possibly affect download speed too

---------- Post added at 21:07 ---------- Previous post was at 20:14 ----------

Arghh...bit of that article I didn't notice before:

Apparently the new 40 per cent throttle is being judged by the ASA as being a “moderate” reduction in download speed so we can expect some new Virgin Media “unlimited, no caps” ads shortly. It must be noted that the new terms above, still contain quite severe uploading throttles, up to 75 per cent at peak times.

Linky

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Top banana

Perhaps this will push them down the route of under promise over deliver. From what I have heard the network can deliver far higher than 120 right now, so they could for example advertise 60, deliver 120 then even if throttled you get the advertised speed at all times?

Umm that's exactly what they've been doing for a decade?

The current service is "Up to" 400Mbps throttled to 20/30/50/60/100/120 depending on how much you pay, and then further throttled to 5/15/25Mbps etc. if you use full speed for more than 15 minutes at peak times...

[Gary L]

God. is this still going on with Virgin and the 'Unlimited' thing?

how many years has it been now?

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Gary L

God. is this still going on with Virgin and the 'Unlimited' thing?

how many years has it been now?

Its been going on long before my grey hairs started to appear.

[Gary L]

It's about time that it was put to rest this Unlimited thing.
when it comes to the internet the term Unlimited means no limits. barriers or obstacles.

I have an unlimited usenet account. the alternative to the one I have is the block one where you can only download a certain amount. compared to keep going and no limits, barriers or obstacles.

Virgin know that it's misleading to many. that's why they want to use the internet term 'Unlimited' because they know that people assume that it means Unlimited without any limits, barriers, obstacles, letters saying that you're downloading too much. and traffic shaping measures.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Qtx

This could potentially be a disaster for a company that relies on misleading PR to get customers connected.

I think they'll get over it.

---------- Post added at 14:38 ---------- Previous post was at 14:36 ----------

Originally Posted by Top banana

Will probably be a new approach once the Liberty deal is concluded at that point they will be the largest operator in Europe, Liberty have already re built their network in Southern Ireland so could potentially do the same in the UK

UPC rebuilt their network in Ireland because a lot of it was analogue, and strung up, poorly, from house to house.

It was, in fact, NTL that started the rebuild when they owned it.

There is no need to rebuild the UK Network.

[Zee]

Originally Posted by Chad

"Our customers receive unlimited, superfast broadband and, even if they're one of the tiny minority traffic managed for a short period of time, Virgin Media customers can download more than other 'unlimited' services, including BT Infinity," the spokeswoman said."

From my experience I seemed to be one of the tiny minority almost every night.

even if it is a minority, that still doesn't give them the right to mislead customers into thinking its unlimited.

You may want that peace of mind, if one night you decide to go major crazy and download a lot of stuff, and then realize that you've been capped.

[passingbat]

Not arguing the wrongs and rights of the unlimited statement, but on any VM package, 30meg and above, even when capped, it's still a lot faster than most Sky/BT ADSL connections.


And the fact that I can download as much as I want, even though when capped it will download it slower, the content that I can download is unlimited. VM need to reword things, but in this sense, it is unlimited.

[Helix]

I recon the 40% reduction might get them through a month or so, but BT and Sky will continue to lodge complains. In my opinion anything more than 25% can't be considered moderate.

[qasdfdsaq]

You lose 20% at peak time just due to congestion anyway, if it weren't for the traffic management you would lose even more.

[Taf]

From the Daily Mail, but the comments are good.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/bil..._campaign=1490