ADSL speed claims approved
On 17 July 2007, the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) ruled that Telkom’s claims, “DSL up to 384kbps”, “DSL up to 512kbps”, “DSL up to 1024kbps (4Mbps trial)” and “4Mbps” were unsubstantiated and in breach of advertising standards regulations.
Telkom was ordered to withdraw its ADSL speed claims and not to use them again until new substantiation had been submitted, evaluated and a new ruling had been made.
This ruling was a result of a competitor complaint from Vodacom against Telkom. Vodacom was previously ordered by the ASA not to use speed claims like 3.6 Mbps for its HSDPA broadband offerings.
Telkom, however, took the opportunity to submit new evidence, and submitted a voluminous report from Frost & Sullivan regarding this matter. Vodacom in return did not object to this new evidence.
The Frost & Sullivan report, entitled “DSL Speed Testing and Verification”, contains the results of comprehensive DSL Testing, Verification and Communications Claims project that were commissioned by Telkom. The project consisted of four phases:
The Executive Summary in the report concludes: “The connection speeds claimed in Telkom’s DSL adverts can be achieved and the tests conducted indicate that they can be achieved by more than 80% of Telkom’s subscriber base for its 4096kbps, 512kbps and 384kbps product offering”.
The ASA stated that the report substantiates Telkom’s claims of “DSL up to 384kbps”, “DSL up to 512kbps”, “DSL up to 1024kbps (4Mbps trial)” and “4Mbps”.
The ASA said that, in light of the above, Telkom may continue to use claimed speeds in relation to its ADSL broadband offerings.
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