MWEB delighted local broadband consumers in March 2010 when it launched South Africa’s first affordable uncapped ADSL products.<\/p>\n
MWEB promotes these ADSL accounts as ‘uncapped’ services, highlighting some of the benefits, such as “Don’t get cut off from your Internet”; “Use as much data as you like”; “FAST always-on internet access”; and “Ideal for video calling, downloads and running a small office.”<\/p>\n
The term ‘uncapped’ did not go down well with two consumers, Mr. and Mrs. Wise, who lodged complaints with the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA).<\/p>\n
Wise argued that the MWEB advertisement is misleading as the word ‘uncapped’ implies limitless access, but that their accounts were cancelled by MWEB claiming high bandwidth usage as the reason.<\/p>\n
MWEB however explained to the ASA that the accounts were cancelled as their usage conduct was in breach of MWEB’s “Acceptable Use Policy.”<\/p>\n
Uncapped must mean uncapped, says ASA<\/strong><\/p>\n The ASA said that a hypothetical reasonable person confronted with a claim such as ‘uncapped’, would expect never to have his connection terminated. “Practices such as reducing (throttling) connection speed are often used as an alternative to capping,” said the ASA.<\/p>\n The ASA further said that they took note of the fact that MWEB indicated that the Wises’ accounts were not terminated based on the volume of data usage, but the manner in which the accounts were used, but added that MWEB has not clearly explained the specific reasons why the services were cut.<\/p>\n “While the Directorate accepts that MWEB may have sound business reasons for doing so, the fact remains that it appears ex facie that the respondent’s uncapped product is monitored and “capped” at some point,” the ASA said.<\/p>\n The ASA rules that MWEB’s uncapped broadband advertisement is misleading, as it appears “ex facie that the service is not ‘uncapped’ as claimed and understood by the hypothetical reasonable person”.<\/p>\n The ASA ordered MWEB to remove their ‘uncapped’ claim, and not use it again in its current format unless they “provide an uncapped service”.<\/p>\n It is interesting to note that the ASA ruled in favour of MWEB in September 2010 after a complaint that its uncapped ADSL products don’t provide ‘unlimited data, all the time’. In this complaint the complainant argued unsuccessfully that MWEB does not “allow 24\/7 usage connection and holds especially draconian policies towards using the connection full-time.”<\/p>\n