ITC definition counts
Hi uz all,
okay never really had any reason to post stuff here, but I think that this time I probably have something to contribute.
In beginning of Feb 2005 I emailed ASA a complaint concerning the Sentech ad. They only replied that there was a ruling outstanding on this complaint and should I not be happy with their ruling I could complain again.
Enough said that I consider the ruling slack not to mention other colourful descriptions I ended up emailing them the following. Now not everything is relevant to the broadband definition but I provide you with enough ammo to convince ICASA in adapting the definition to them.
Minor warning.... it's a tad long, whoever factual and hopefully non-repetitive.
<----- Snip begin copy ASA letter ---->
Re: Sentech MyWireless / Mr Edwards / 1629, 1654-1657
I’m taking this opportunity to comment on the recent ruling made by the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) on Sentech MyWireless vs Mr Edwards.
I hope that in me pointing out the flaws in Sentech, Internet Service Provider’s Association (ISPA) and World Wide Worx (WWW) argumentation and/or opinions that the ASA will re-address the ruling taking into account the new factual information.
As the ASA is well aware of South Africa has been a member of the International Telecommunication Union since 1 January 1910 (
http://www.itu.int/cgi-bin/htsh/mm/scripts/mm.list?_search=ITUstates&_languageid=1).
This means that any standardisations and/or definitions issued by the ITU would have bearing on South Africa’s telecommunications sector. This is substantiated by a paper released by the University of the Witwatersrand (
http://link.wits.ac.za/papers/convergence-broadband.pdf), out of interest sake it also mentions broadband as 2Mbits per second, but that is irrelevant for now. It does however indicate that Sentech, Telkom and any company dealing in services governed by the Telecommunications Act (No. 103 of 1996), the Independent Broadcasting Authority Act (No. 153 of 1993), and the Broadcasting Act (No. 4 of 1999) are automatically forced to adhere to these standards defined to their respective services by the ITU.
The term “broadband” has been used and misused in many forms as Answers.com(
http://www.answers.com/broadband&r=67) and Wikipedia (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband_Internet_access) clearly indicate.
This also has been pointed out within the report by Sentech, ISPA and WWW. All three however have contradicted themselves as well when they first falsely claim that “globally there is no uniform or standardised definition of broadband” and then go on to claim that “128 can be referred to as broadband” and “significantly faster means at least 4-5 times the speed of traditional low-speed services”.
Firstly if they claim that there is no definition for broadband, how can they then claim that 128 is broadband.
Secondly “significantly faster means…” is speculation and personal opinion not based on definitions, standards or facts and therefore have no relevance to this report.
And thirdly the ISPA fails to explain what is considered “traditional low-speed” as this can only be seen again as speculation and personal opinion it has no bearing on this report.
I will reframe from pointing out more mistakes as they are all based on hearsay, opinions and not facts.
As all of the above companies should be aware, the ITU has defined broadband in there recommendation “Vocabulary of terms for broadband aspects of ISDN “ I.113 (06/97) (
http://www.itu.int/rec/recommendation.asp?type=items&lang=e&parent=T-REC-I.113-199706-I) which was approved in 1997-06 and has a status “In force”.
The ITU Standardization Sector (ITU-T) recommendation I.113 has defined broadband as a transmission capacity that is faster than primary rate ISDN, at 1.5 to 2 Mbit/s.
No where does in define broadband as an “always on” service or indicate that broadband is an information format as the WWW would have you believe. The WWW’s explanation that in “Internet speak” broadband is 128Kbits per second is hearsay and has no bearing on this case. And having had the UK parliament hear broadband described as being as low as 128Kbps does not make it true either.
It is my opinion that the research done and information provided by ISPA and WWW is inaccurate, false, of poor quality and bears no relevance to the case Sentech vs Mr Edwards. The ASA would be well advised in having ISPA and WWW reimburse the ASA for their time within this ruling.
Please be advised that I also pointed out the definition by the ITU in my complaint dated 02/02/2005 “Re: Sentech TV ads promoting MyWireless “ with regards to Sentech’s misrepresentation of their offered services as broadband. Please also note that Sentech uses the term broadband multiple times on their website (
http://www.sentech.co.za) to define or explain their offered services.
I still consider this as a gross misconduct on Sentech’s behalf to knowingly misrepresent their products and mislead the public.
In my opinion Sentech should be made an example of with regards to falsifying their product by misusing the term broadband. Removing the ad and having them rename their products are not enough as Sentech has already benefited from selling the products to the public on these false claims of being a broadband provider since the first quarter 2004.
Should you need any more information or wish to discuss any of the above mentioned please feel free to contact me directly.
Friendly regards,...
<----- Snip End copy ASA letter ---->
I skipped the part of pointing out that the UK parliament were also told Iraq had weapons of mass destruction which also has been false so their credibility is a tad shot, but that would have been pushing it a bit me thinks
Yip long and windy road... Use what you can adopt the rest, let’s get some clarity and demand reimbursements from Sendreck and Spermcount (Telkom) while we’re at it.
Cheers troll-op
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