Communications giant 3 has complained to the Advertising Standards Authority over the mobile broadband claims made by a rival provider

According to a recent report the communications giant 3 has made a complaint about a rival provider, Vodafone, stating that the rival has been making misleading claims by advertising the fastest mobile broadband network. 3 has complained to the advertising Standards Authority as well as to the GSM Association. It has accused Vodafone of running a misleading advertising campaign.

The provider also brought up the issue of fairness at a media round table earlier this week. This comes after Vodafone ran advertisements offering mobile broadband speeds of up to 7.2mbps. Vodafone has announced recently that it is extending its network to make it available to a further three million consumers in various towns and cities around the UK . 3 is expected to make the 7.2mbps available from July.

However, officials from 3 state that the mobile broadband sector could hit the same problems as the fixed broadband sector in terms of in terms of providers advertising far faster speeds than the consumers will actually end up getting. 3 says that whilst Vodafone advertisements offer ‘up to’ 7.2mbps the actual average speed is so far off this figure that Vodafone should avoid advertising speeds altogether.

Officials from 3 have stated that they are concerned about the picture that is being put across to consumers by mobile broadband providers in terms of the speeds that they can expect, and they want providers to be more transparent and honest about the realistic speeds that the average consumer can expect to receive. According to 3 when the maximum speed offered is 7.2mbps the actual maximum speed is only 6.69mbps because a portion of the figure is used in sending data, which means that the actual figure is lower than the advertised one in terms of maximum speed. On top of this the average consumer will receive far less than the maximum speed.