BT has been ticked off for running a campaign claiming to have the UK's "most powerful" broadband, almost two years after it was hauled before the ad industry watchdog over the same issue.
Back in June 2017, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) rapped the former state monopoly on the knuckles for "misleading" and "inaccurate" boasts that its Smart Hub provided a "stronger signal" than all of its competitors. BT was clearly undeterred by the ASA.
Fast-forward to the here and now and the gummy-mouthed watchdog received a complaint from Virgin Media – itself no stranger to criticism about its own campaigns – about two BT promos: one for consumers and one for businesses.
The first, aimed at households, included the claim "UK's most powerful Wi-Fi vs major broadband providers" as part of the Unlimited Infinity bundle. The second made the same claim but was aimed at businesses via the BT Business Smart Hub.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 04 2019, @08:55AM (4 children)
Well do they have the highest wattage or not?!
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday March 04 2019, @10:17AM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Monday March 04 2019, @02:11PM
Wouldn't matter if they had 50 antennae on the one box, really. There's a limit to the power output from such a device (otherwise everyone would just put a million antennae in, each at 5W, and you'd end up with a 5 million Watt transmitter in everyone's home which would end in anarchy.
An old Draytek router of mine (with "just" three antennae) gives me complete coverage throughout not only a three-bed house, plus outside in the front and back gardens, but my car picks up the wifi before I even get near the house.
Hell, I can see networks which triangulate using wifi-scanning apps as being 5-6 houses away.
The BT routers, by comparison, are always absolute junk. Whenever I deploy a business line we're told we "must" use them, so we bin them on day one because they're just that good. I think we keep one around just in case the service lines ever demand we use it.
And that's before you even get close to "real" wifi units that are deployed in businesses and the like - which tend to be boring square boxes with no visible antennae at all, but have ranges so huge that I've just had to block half the neighbourhood around one of our sites because they were all jumping on our guest wifi.
BT routers are junk compared to anything with a real price-tag, and don't fare well against any non-BT box such as supplied by the majority of ISPs. Hell, a NetGear WRT45G still kicks their backside most of the time, and that's two technologies old (n and ac).
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday March 04 2019, @10:20AM
irrelevant to the claims, so likely no stronger.
they tested special network traffic, with only one device, in a lab, and managed 'slightly better' performance.
they didn't test multiple devices, connected in a normal house, using normal traffic.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday March 04 2019, @03:10PM
By "most powerful", BT might not be referring to wattage. They might be referring to thrusting power related to how BT treats its customers.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by Nuke on Monday March 04 2019, @11:19AM (1 child)
I cut loose from BT about 3 years ago. The line to my house was broken by trees (not mine, along the road half a mile away ), and they took 6 weeks to do anything. Then they would not recompense me for anything other than a pro-rata part of the standing charge. Meanwhile I was having to drive 10 miles to use the internet at the nearest public library and 3 miles to use my mobile (no reception here).
Apart from that - ever tried to contact them about a poor (like crackly) line? There is no dedicated number for this so you must go through umpteen menus with voice recognition FFS! Asked if you want to pay your bill, go paperless, or want to hear a plug about how "green" they are, etc and you are yelling and screaming "NO!!! LINE FAULT!!" and because it is voice recognition on a very crackly line it just says "I'm sorry, I did not catch that". Eventually if you are lucky you get through to an Indian with a heavy accent (plus the crackles don't forget) who does not seem to know what a tree is (they chopped them all down for firewood in India I supppose) who once the fake Hugh Grant accent wears off in a few seconds, is telling you to fuck off, in a polite way of course
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NateMich on Monday March 04 2019, @12:57PM
Your telecoms and their tech support sound exactly like ours here in the US.
I'm not really surprised.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 04 2019, @03:41PM (1 child)
BT Hubs give you more cancer than most and that is just from the hub user interface. It will also give you brane damage.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 04 2019, @03:47PM
Should also mention they run on linux...and are very locked-down..and probably not gpl compliant.