Telecommunications

Eircom’s Advanced Unlimited Package advertised on their website offered the following:

“€35 per month for first 6 months
€50 per month thereafter –Get started now
Your fastest speed 24 Mb download
Unlimited usage allowance” Link provided here to “What does this mean?

“Unlimited Off-Peak Local and National calls
30 mobile minutes
Plus get exclusive extras, FREE with your eircom broadband:
SportsHub – Watch sport for free
StudyHub – Access free tutorials
WiFiHub – free WIFI”

The complainant raised two issues with the advertising:

Complaint 1 – Broadband Speeds
The complainant said that while the advertisement had offered broadband speeds of ‘up to 24Mb’ he had only been provided with an 8Mb service.

Complaint 2 – Sports Hub
The complainant said that three weeks after he signed up to the package the Sports Hub had been removed and was since being charged as a ‘pay as you go’ service. He considered that the advertisers should have known that this was going to happen and therefore it should not have been included as part of the bundled package.

The advertisers addressed the two issues raised by the complainant.

Complaint 1 – Broadband Speeds
The advertisers said that all of their broadband products were advertised as ‘up to 24Mb’. The maximum speed which a consumer received depended on (a) the quality of the line and (b) how far the property was from the exchange. They said that they always stated that their ‘Broadband speeds may vary and depend on the quality of your line.’

Complaint 2 – Sports Hub
The advertisers said that this service has been discontinued entirely from their product portfolio. It had not been available to buy on a subscription basis and was offered to customers as a free, value added service. The service had been shut down on October 31st 2013 for commercial reasons.

Complaint upheld in part.

Complaint 1 – Broadband Speeds
The Committee noted that the broadband speeds had been advertised as ‘up to’ speeds and that a qualifying statement had been provided in the terms and conditions by the advertisers. They did not consider this element of the advertising had breached the requirements of the Code.

Complaint 1 was not upheld.

Complaint 2 – Sports Hub
The Complaints Committee noted that the complainant had signed up with eircom during September. They also noted eircom’s statement that the sports Hub was a ‘free value added service’. The Committee noted that while advertisers were entitled to vary their product offerings, consumers were also entitled to assume that a product, whether it was the core product or a value add on which was advertised as part of the product offering, would be available to them for a reasonable period of their contract, if not the entire duration of their contract.

They accepted that there could be situations outside the control of advertisers but no evidence had been submitted to that effect in this case, and the Committee considered that the advertisers appear to have continued to promote a service as part of a product offering which they knew was due to be withdrawn. The Committee considered that the advertising had breached section 2.45 of the Code.

Complaint 2 was upheld.

Action Required:
The advertisement must not run in its current form again.