VODAFONE

Vodafone's Gigafast Package Advertisement Under FireBritish giant challenged by Virgin Media
The UK ISP Vodafone has had it's "Gigafast" Broadband adverts banned after Virgin Media challenged them within the courts earlier this year. The issue arose after Virgin Media accused Vodafone of misrepresenting its broadband packages to consumers, Vodafone's website, clearly stated that you could achieve an average speed of 900 Mbps, not exactly 1 Gbps. This fall in line with new British legislation launched in May of 2018, stating that internet service providers must only advertise download speeds that are available to at least 50-percent of their account holders during the prime time between 8 and 10 pm.
The Advertising Standards Authority, (a consumer watchdog within the UK), stated that most customers would assume the prefix giga to be a "hyperbolic description of speed", with many being confused or even tricked into believing that their downloads speeds would exceed or be at that fabled 1 Gbps download speed. The watchdog did take into account that those speeds could be possible outside of those peak times, however it pulled Vodafone up on one other point within its advertising campaign, "to enjoy Vodafone Gigafast Broadband speeds for the little as £ 23 a month". Problem being that to get that top Gigafast package, you'd need to forking over £ 48 a month at a minimum, with the £ 23 package offering 1 / 10th the speed of its top rated package.
Vodafone reached out to the BBC and stated that the company "had made improvements to our website several months before the ruling ASA to ensure that the cost and speed of each package is as clear as possible".
There's definitely an irony to all of these, as those who are typically going to be looking at these packages should be well aware of how networking works, and when you're most likely to achieve those speeds. An almost assumed knowledge if you will. Gigafast may have been a poor decision. Openreach (the company behind the fiber infrastructure within the UK), states that this fiber to the property technology is actually called Ultrafast, circumventing that Giga description, and bizarrely the company also has the "Gfast" technology in place currently as well, which can drive up to 330 Mbps download speeds across fiber to the cabinet, and copper to the house properties too (although only in select areas). Zak Storey