BT coughs to broadband ad blunder

BT has held up its hands and admitted that its own sloppy mistake was to blame for a broadband ad blunder.

Telewest complained to the Advertising Standards Authority that an ad plugging BT's frill-less Broadband basic product made unfair comparisons with Telewest's own broadband product.

The cableco pointed out that, unlike BT Broadband Basic, it enforced no usage caps. Telewest also explained that the cost of its broadband package was all-inclusive, as opposed to the extras (a BT phone line, modem, for example) demanded by BT.

When challenged, BT didn't even bother to justify the poster ad. Instead, it told the ASA that it had not made it clear that Telewest had an unlimited data allowance, admitting this "was a mistake and agreed that it made the comparison misleading".

BT - which is losing DSL market share - also confessed that it had "omitted references to the additional line rental required for their service and the modem included in the Telewest package at no extra cost by mistake".

Earlier this month, AOL UK was ticked off by the ASA for "exaggerating" the performance of its 1Mb broadband service. A member of the public objected to the ad - which featured a cheetah with running spikes - claiming they didn't believe AOL UK could meet its "1Mb Broadband" claim. ®

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