Telkom censored on DSL speeds

By Candice Jones for Telkom
Johannesburg, 18 Jul 2007

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of SA has ruled that Telkom may not list its DSL speeds in its advertising campaigns.

The complaint was brought to the ASA by Telkom subsidiary Vodacom, which accused the fixed-line monopoly of "misleading claims" in its advertising.

According to Vodacom, Telkom must substantiate its claims of currently advertised ADSL speeds, which read as "DSL up to 384kbps", "DSL up to 512kbps", "DSL up to 1024kbps", "4Mbps trial", or "the fastest broadband 4Mbps now available".

Telkom was compelled by the ASA to prove that the advertised speeds were being experienced by a "significant proportion" of its ADSL customers.

In response to the complaint, Telkom submitted a report compiled by MyADSL founder Rudolph Muller, detailing "among other things, a graphical depiction of the different DSL products' true performance compared to the claimed speeds".

Just not enough

The report says Telkom's DSL packages perform at over 60% of advertised speeds and its 4Mbps service is the best performing broadband service in the country.

Lillian Mlambo, spokesperson for the ASA, says: "We did not find the research submitted by Telkom credible; it is essentially why we came to the ruling we did." She says the report was insufficient to substantiate the company's claims.

According to the ASA ruling, the ratings reviewed in the report do "not only concern performance, as there is no indication as to the weight afforded to performance. The rating, therefore, does not constitute proof that the claimed speeds are achievable for the 4Mbps product, and nothing else in the report indicates that this is so."

The ASA directorate also says the report does not show that the claimed speeds were ever actually achieved for the products tested.

Setting a precedent

Telkom is now expected to withdraw all advertised ADSL speed claims until such time as the company can provide substantiated evidence that these claims are valid.

It is still unclear what approach Telkom will take in advertising its DSL products, since the company did not comment at the time of publication.

Mlambo says the ruling in effect does set a precedent for future claims by other providers. "Companies must be able to support all the claims they make in any advertising campaign," she says.