Complaint in respect of Telkom broadband advertisements

As indicated in http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showpost.php?p=778876&postcount=30 I have laid a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority over Telkom advertising its ADSL services as broadband. I have recieved correspondence from ASA however because the correspondence is marked as confidential . I am confident that the authority is investigating the matter fully and will try to keep everyone in the loop. The complaint has been assigned a reference of: TELKOM ADSL / P HJUL / 8238

Basically the complaint rests on three foundations:
1) The ADSL regulations require that ADSL services advertised as "broadband" must be guarenteed at 256kps or higher - Telkom explicitly refuses to issue guarentees, subsequently they are in breach of the law (the regulations are a form of secondary legislation) and subsequently are in violation of the code. Its basically the same (at least in my opinion) as advertising stolen vehicles. While ASA is not there to deal with the crime of theft it may order the removal of the advert. Note: Im not suggesting that ADSL is illegal but it is illegal to advertise non-broadband ADSL as broadband - the regulations are clear that guarantees must be issued.

2) Telkom is misleading the public by advertising its maximum speeds without minimum speeds.

3) Telkom is abusing the publics lack of knowledge by misusing the term "Broadband" for ADSL services that are not of a broadband nature.

I have a copy of the "appeal" on the Iburst case and while it effects my complaint it certainly does not sink it - in fact a few things noted in the appeal are quite pertinent.

I will be sending ASASA further correspondence today or tommorow. If everything goes well Telkom may have more bad news by the 19th of January.

I will also be sending ICASA a complaint in respect of Telkom breaching the regulations.

If anybody has any assistance to offer me, please feel free to PM me. I'd like feedback on peoples thoughts of the entire matter - and suspect that it may be helpful if discussion on it can be raised.

I would like to repeat that ASASA has been quite marvellous so far and Im hoping that I will be able to put together one happy document (in pdf format) of all of the correspondence and so on once this is all finalised. Telkom has not sent me any response but I do believe they are responding to ASASA.

I really do believe that Telkom needs to be tackled from as many angles as possible.

Good one Paul Hjul. That seems a major chink in the armour: imagine telkom not being able to advertise broadband LOL

Of course first argument is limitation of the technology (distance from the exchange) but of course that doesn't hold water because that is an infrastructure problem that should have been solved (if telkom hadn't laid off all its staff and paid fat salaries instead of investing in the network.)

HaHa.

Good luck.

Great one. I really don't think you can improve much on that.

The only positive suggestion I will offer is to re-iterate point 3 somewhere again.

The only criticism I will offer is this-

Its basically the same (at least in my opinion) as advertising stolen vehicles. While ASA is not there to deal with the crime of theft it may order the removal of the advert.

Click to expand...

I think you lose a bit of credibility in saying this. Perhaps find a more appropriate analogy?

/my 2c, change welcome

Debbie2 said:

Great one. I really don't think you can improve much on that.

The only positive suggestion I will offer is to re-iterate point 3 somewhere again.

The only criticism I will offer is this-



I think you lose a bit of credibility in saying this. Perhaps find a more appropriate analogy?

/my 2c, change welcome

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I agree on this, may be something like "food that's tagged as 80% Fat Free obviously contains 20% Fat and therefore, quite unhealthy" (but sure tastes nice of course)...

Not sure about here, but in the UK you can state "contains only 5% Fat" but "95% Fat free" is not legal.

Debbie - I haven't used that analogy for anything formal for this exact reason. For more "formal stuff" a person would need to use an analogy of activity that is not criminal but is not legal either, and that leads me down a really confusing track (decriminalising vs legalising and so on). The analogy as it stands is for Joe soap - in fact it might be nice to run rhetorical questions to the effect of you don't buy stolen cars do you? then why do you buy internet from a company that violates ICASA regulations? and so forth.
But yes point taken its not a good analogy particularly because it blows things a little bit out of proportion. Point three needs lots of expansion however for that I think I need expert opinion on - my formal correspondence (the submission Im working on at the moment) actually goes into that in full detail. In particular I am arguing that the regulations create two types of ADSL services broadband ADSL and non-broadband ADSL you may provide non-broadband ADSL services as long as you don't advertise it as broadband. - Not everyone needs broadband and quite frankly a cheep unshaped "experiband" ADSL service would be cool that has a 64kps guarantee and a "best effort" service above that.

Thanks for the input - if you could provide more particularly in the form of well constructed letters to include in the complaint please let me know

So it would be fair to advertise:

Telkom contains more than one Moron

LOL

I am full of Holiday cheer this afternoon

Paul just be careful about how you go about with point 3. I would expect the ASASA to run a complaint such as this through ICASA, and ICASA's longtime position (and part of their lawful mandate) is that ICASA themselves
are responsible for public education about telecoms. So this is a tricky area to enter therefore be careful how it is worded.....but definitely do expand on it.

You could argue that Telkom, by virtue of their size, monopoly and integral position in SAfrican society, is arguably the biggest creator of public mindset and opinions about telecoms in general, and not just Telkom as a telecoms provider. ie Telkom is in the fortunate position to be able to 'frame' things, to tell people about telcoms- if Telkom tells us 192k is broadband, even despite/in contravention of the ADSL regulations, then Telkom is not only misleading the public about their own services they offer, but also about what broadband actually is regardless of where Telkom fits into the picture. Does that make sense? In other words, Telkom is giving out information that is not only untrue of their services, but also untrue of telecoms in general.

Telkom is a trendsetter with regard to how SAfrican society thinks about telecoms, and Telkom therefore has a duty to not only not mislead people about their services but also about telecoms more broadly.

I think this makes for a strong argument.

Thanks - It does make sense - a lot of it.

It might also help to bring more points into the argument - there are a number of things in the regs that Telkom aren't complying with.. the 24 hour reset for example.

That alone should prevent them from advertising it as broadband, if not stop them from using the term ADSL altogether.

Great job so far.

eremos: for now Im going to complain about the guarentees on service issue. Once ASASA has decided that the next spool of regulation violations involving advertising should step in. Although it may be interesting to have a complaint complaining of the use of the term "internet" in a telkom advert ... but thats for somebody else to start up

I got lazy (actually busy) and left things to hang for a bit, but the TAG advert spiced me up a bit and I chased up on things. I've also added to my complaint there current TV ads "powered by broadband". Im wondering whether Telkom is going to make any complaints about the TAG advert

Touch Tomorrow is another big lie.

Problem is how to explain it to people not versed in the details of modern technology.

kaspaas said:

Touch Tomorrow is another big lie.

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It works if you are still in the 18th century

Looks like they are starting to do what they should - admission of guilt?
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?p=858184#post858184

So whats happening here??? Did we get their broadband ad kicked or what??? This is the first time I am reading this thread. I think they should put up an apology ad instead The day an executive or CEO of Telkom apologises on National television is the day we all realize cheap internet. Whether that day will come I very much doubt.