subject: Broadband Adverts - What Do They Really Mean? [print this page] If the slew of adverts that are already arriving to try and sell us consumer electronics and technology in preparation for the world cup are anything to go by then we're in for a good few months of broadband adverts.
Broadband advertising has long been a divisive issue with a wide - and, some would argue, widening - gap between what's being promised and what is actually being delivered.
This is most particularly the case in the most competitive markets - for example, those companies that are offering the cheapest broadband deals and those that are offering the fastest broadband deals.
In the case of these markets there is a generally agreed upon stance of weasel words - these are most often misleading but technically correct.
For the sake of argument, let's say that there are three main ways that broadband providers do this. However, it could be argued that there are far more.
To start off, let's take this phrase: "These superfast broadband deals come with a speed of up to 8Mb."
Now, superfast is a real weasel word for the broadband industry. It essentially is now used to mean 'fast' or if not exactly 'fast' then 'working'.
In a technical sense, some groups use superfast to refer to types of cable broadband which give speeds of up to 50Mb so an ordinary ADSL connection, which is what's being referred to above, certainly wouldn't qualify.
That brings us to the second suspect phrase in the mix 'up to'.
Up to should mean the highest speed technically available using the technology available but the ones set by broadband providers are often not available in any circumstances.
Thus, the broadband advertiser is technically offering something impossible, albeit deliverable to some extent it could never be fulfilled in full.
Finally, we come to the third way in which broadband adverts commonly deceive us: comparing apples and oranges.
This is particularly the case where two providers are quite similar - so with Sky or Virgin, for example.
In this case, the broadband provider often claims to be a certain amount less expensive than their rival but if we look a little
There is, finally, a certain warning about these warnings themselves.
While we can rightly or wrongly regard broadband advertising as at times sneaky or even downright underhand adverts are checked on a regular basis by the ASA.
Broadband providers have been caught out by them especially on the last point but in general these advertisers aren't doing anything illegal: just using a language which may take some deciphering.
