Government sends broadband complaints back to authorities

Complaints relating to ‘unlimited’ broadband claims from Internet Service Providers have managed to reach Downing Street, but have been sent back to authorities to deal with.

Over recent months complaints and dissatisfaction over ‘unlimited’ broadband offers from Internet Service Providers have rocketed. The complaints stem from offers of unlimited broadband from Internet Service Providers, when in fact the services are limited based on the fair use policies enforced by the providers. And because these policies are not clear, many consumers are unaware of what their limits are and feel that advertising the service as unlimited is misleading and false.

Complaints have been flooding in recently over this issue, and although campaigners and agencies want ISPs to make their fair use policies more transparent authorities have stated that providing the ISPs make it clear that there is a fair use policy in place this is all that needs to be done. A recent petition was signed by nine thousand people over the unfairness of these unlimited broadband offers, and this was then sent to Downing Street.

However, despite the petition going to Downing Street it still looks unlikely that anything will be done about the false advertising that ISPs have been accused of. This is because Downing Street has passed the issue over to the Advertising Standards Agency, the regulator that has already refused to take action over the issue. The response to the complaint was: “For example, if 80 per cent of domestic customers fall well within the limit specified by a broadband provider and the remaining 20 per cent fall outside of it, perhaps because they are using a domestic package for business use, then it may be considered a reasonable claim.”

Public satisfaction with broadband providers has already plummeted in the first three months of this year, and this latest issue over false advertising is likely to knock satisfaction levels down even further.