Orange has been ordered by the Advertising Standards Authority to pull an advertisement that claimed its 3G network to reach better than its rivals, after the operator 3 has challenged that claim.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said on Wednesday it has had a complaint of 3 on the ad for mobile broadband services in Orange, which appeared in regional publications. Titled “Top Dongle” said the ad network “Orange 3G includes more people in the UK than any other operator.”
“… We believe that the claim is ambiguous in the context of a wireless broadband service as it did not make clear whether he was referring to Orange to cover more people in the places where they lived than any other operator (population coverage ) or more people in the UK, wherever they may be using their 3G mobile device (geographical coverage), “the ASA said in a statement.
In its complaint, said he believed three had the largest 3G network in the UK. Orange responded by telling the ASA treated their statistics and population coverage were taken from the most recently published figures available from each of the 3G providers. He also used “a couple of internal tools and people recognized the public domain to the location information,” said the ASA. Orange figures brings you the 93.39 percent of the population of the United Kingdom, while 3 was 91 percent.
According to the ASA, Orange has not shown that the data coverage of the population had been provided to competing networks directly comparable to yours. In addition, Ofcom maps issued by the coverage of major mobile operators not substantiate their claims that Orange has the widest coverage in the UK, he said.
As Orange could not demonstrate that the data provided by 3G networks to compete is based on the same methods it uses to its own figures, says the operator for service could not be proven, said the advertising watchdog. As a result, the ad is misleading.
“Orange said in its advertising to have greater 3G network in the UK were completely unfounded and misleading consumers,” said director of sales and marketing 3 Marc Allera in a statement in response to the decision. “Right now, consumers struggle to get a coherent picture of how networks compare when it comes to 3G coverage. It is in the interest of consumers to have a final conclusion on the 3G network coverage.”
Orange said he believes that the announcement had been fair, because it was based on information available to the public of their rivals.
“While we accept the decision of the ASA, we believe that this decision effectively gags us – and the rest of the industry – to talk about our networks, since, according to the ASA, as our demands are not” directly comparable, “said the company.
“What is most frustrating is the company that raised the complaint, 3, have begun to use the same demand that we have been forbidden to use – the largest 3G network by the population. This is absurd and an insult to the decision the ASA, “he said.