19th February 2010

Our client Magnet Networks are featured in today’s Irish Times on the misleading nature of broadband advertising.  Magnet’s recent marketing campaign, The No Sharing Revolution, highlight’s the unshared nature of their broadband packages, as competing products continue to suffer slow speeds from numerous subscribers sharing a line.

The feature explains how, despite direction from the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland (ASAI),broadband providers are not advertising the ‘busy hour’ limitations of their services in a clear and open manner.  ‘Busy hour’ speeds are affected by the number of other users sharing the broadband connection, known as contention.
“Despite the recent launch of headline-grabbing high speed products from various providers, actual broadband speeds attained are still only a fraction of what’s being advertised,” said Mark Kellett, CEO of Magnet Networks. “‘Up to’ so many Mb is a relatively meaningless figure because providers omit to reveal to what level the speed is shared with other customers.  In many cases it can be as high as 47 other people, so if everyone on that service decided to go online at the same time, they receive nowhere near the speed they’ve signed up to.”

Magnet made the call for other providers to come clean in the interests of informing customers on what they are subscribing as well as to create a market driven by innovation on not simply empty specifications.

The call comes as Magnet launch their latest uncontended product. Magnet Force 5, which offers a fast, unshared phone and 5Mb broadband package that outpaces Eircom’s 3Mb package on speed and price.   As well as free calls, installation and a router the package delivers a free TV service including channels RTE1 and 2, TV3, TG4, 3e and MTV.