Vodafone’s ‘lightyears ahead’ broadband claim found misleading

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (“ASA”) has taken the hatchet to Vodafone UK’s mobile broadband advertising.

The ads typically showed a USB broadband stick looking like a rocket jetting into outerspace, with a strapline explaining that Vodafone’s mobile broadband service is ‘light years ahead’ of the competition. The ad also aimed to point out that Vodafone’s service was superior to the competition.

3 and T-Mobile, together with a member of the public, took issue with the ads. The ASA investigated and upheld the complaints.

Naughty Vodafone!

In fairness I tend to find their entire service the most reliable — still — but I note that in the ASA findings, the pointed out that the LCC test (that Voda used to support their claims) found that:

In six out of the 10 regions of the UK tested, one of the other networks had a faster average time to download a web page than Vodafone.

I’m willing to bet that was 3 who was faster…

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  • Daniel Butler
    Presonally after trying most i find that O2 wireless broadband is the cheapest quickest and most relible of any Mobile Broadband expansion, £7.50 a month if your on O2 free Router and fast connection.

    Vodafone would only be Light years ahead with they were using a Fiber optics connection line (Damn expensive).

    Kassan
  • South77
    On balance i'd say you get best performance on Vodafone.

    3's great for coverage but speeds have dropped lately.

    I tend to have a dongle and phone on different networks, then you've got a lot more chance of being able to get coverage when out of town
  • worldofnokia
    it was T-Mobile who were quicker. T-Mob won another award just a few days ago for having the best mobile braodband network in the UK and got the quickest speeds in 16 locations
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