6 July 2007
uSwitch has called on the government to look again at providers' claims of 'unlimited' broadband services in advertising campaigns.
It claims that such services are unfairly advertised as many providers neglect to mention that broadband provision is actually limited in the small print.
It comes as part of an online petition supporting government action was signed by over 10,000 people, however uSwitch has claimed that the MPs' response was disappointing.
uSwitch believes the government has "washed its hands" of the nine million current broadband users at risk of having their broadband services limited, suspended or cut by providers because of confusion as what the term unlimited really means.
What's more, the government has said it is the Advertising Standards Authority's (ASA) responsibility to look into the issue, but they have found that the 'unlimited' claim is sufficient.
Steve Weller, Head of Communications Services, said: "It appears that despite the high number of consumers who believe the current advertising to be misleading and unfair, the government and the ASA are not taking the 'unlimited' issue seriously.
"We will continue to put pressure on the providers as well as the ASA until this issue is addressed and 'unlimited' broadband is culled unless it really means unlimited. In the meantime, we urge consumers to be aware of their broadband usage to make sure they are not caught out.
Earlier this week, the ASA responded to complaints made by BT against advertisements by VoIP provider Vonage relating to pricing issues.
While it upheld eight out of BT's nine complaints against the provider, it ruled in favour of Vonage on the issue of the amount of bandwidth available to users.
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