Virgin VS Sky Broadband rows erupt again

PRLog (Press Release) – Aug 08, 2007 – Earlier this year Virgin Media and BskyB were plastered over the news on a regular basis after a feud erupted over how much Virgin was willing to pay for its customers to have access to certain Sky television channels, including the hugely popular Sky One. As a result of this row, and after Virgin refused to pay what Sky was asking, Virgin customers ended up losing these channels and animosity between the two communication giants was firmly installed.

Within months of this famed feud, the two communications giants are at it again according to recent reports, this time over allegations of misleading advertising. Sky has taken Virgin Media to the Advertising Standards Agency, claiming that Virgin has been running misleading advertisements that make its own broadband service look way better than the broadband service that is offered by Sky. According to Sky Virgin has moulded the advertise to point out only certain things that make consumers think that the service from Sky is nowhere near as good as the broadband service from Virgin.

The advertisement run by Virgin features a table that compares different aspects of its broadband service against that offered by Sky – and according to the table Sky comes of worst when it comes to benefits for customers. The advert claims that customers with Virgin can enjoy "up to 2Mb with as many downloads as you want". However, with regards to Sky's 8Mbps connection, it stated: "They say it's up to 8Mb but the further you live from the exchange the slower it gets. And they decide how much you can download".

Yvan Bamping of broadband comparison site http://www.broadband-expert.co.uk stated: “with conflicting claims from different broadband providers it is becoming increasingly difficult for consumers to choose the most suitable broadband package. Whilst the increased competition between broadband providers has helped force down prices we would welcome a code of conduct when stating broadband speeds and download limits to allow consumers to make more informed decisions”.

The Advertising Standards Agency is now looking into the claims that have been made in the Virgin advertsiement. One of the things that Sky asked was why Virgin hadn't compare like for like products. Instead of comparing its 2Mbps connection with Sky's 2Mbps connection it compared its 2Mbps with Sky's 8Mbps. Virgin officials responded by stating that they were not aware that Sky even offered a 2Mbps connection.