Orange unlimited broadband ad was misleading

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has found an advert for unlimited broadband and free minutes by Orange to be misleading.

Following a complaint from rival T-Mobile, the ASA investigated a magazine ad for a home broadband service, that advertised unlimited UK and international calls and unlimited downloads.  Both of these are subject to a fair usage policy, which was not stated in the ad.  The unlimited calls are actually limited to 1000 minutes per month, whilst the broadband service is subject to the fair use policy.

Orange conceded that the omission of a reference to a fair usage policy was an error in the production of the ad.  The company also said that only 1.96 percent of their customers exceeded the 1000 minutes and 1.09 percent of customers were affected by the broadband fair usage policy.

It has no plans to use the ad again in its current form and said that ads stating “unlimited downloads” will include a reference to their fair usage policy.