Complaint regarding Vodafone mobile broadband speed claims made by 3

The claims of 7.2Mbps mobile broadband speeds made by Vodafone and recently been attacked by rival mobile operator 3, who have now lodged an official complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority.

Vodafone’s claims of offering its users a theoretical top mobile broadband connection speed of 7.2Mbps have led it to be considered the fastest network in the UK for a while. The complaint that has been raised by 3, however, states that the ability of Vodafone to supply these 7.2Mbps mobile broadband speeds do not represent its mobile broadband service as a whole because it is only able to supply these speeds to specific parts of its network. The allegation that these speeds are ‘unlikely to be achieved’ and ‘misleading’ were sent in the letter of complaint.

A statement from a 3 spokesman said ‘The complexity of mobile broadband means even if you use 3.6Mbps technology it is very unlikely a customer will experience those speeds.’

The advertised speed of 7.2Mbps can be achieved in London and in airports according to claims by Vodafone and later this year will see these speeds available in other major cities, although this would seem to confirm the argument from 3 in that although Airports and London have this speed nowhere else does.

The complaint lodged by 3 is a fair one in that the claims made by Vodafone could easily be seen as being a little misleading and this could have led to 3 and other mobile broadband providers losing customers to these claims by Vodafone. The key concern from many industry experts is that even though this complaint may be valid the idea of one mobile broadband provider accusing another of providing inaccurate or misleading connection speeds seems ridiculous when none of the speed advertised by any of the providers give any real indication of the actual speeds that most user get when using mobile broadband services in the real world.