Ad description
A website, press ad and poster, seen 20 July 2011, promoted T-Mobile’s pay monthly price plans with inclusive internet.
a. The website stated “Truly Unlimited Internet with no fair use policy From £25 a month”. The terms and conditions, on the Fair Use page linked from the promotion page, stated “Remember that you can only use internet on your phone in the UK and you can’t use your phone as a modem (tethering) or use internet on your phone for peer-to-peer file sharing or making internet calls”.
b. A press ad stated “Thanks to truly unlimited Internet, Dave won’t get into trouble for watching the highlights. Well, not with us, anyway. Unlimited internet on all plans over £25. Very small print stated “Truly unlimited” means use as many MG/GB as you like, but you can’t use your phone as a modem (tethering), for peer to peer file sharing or for making internet phone calls”.
c. a poster ad was headlined “Truly unlimited internet with iPhone 4”. Text stated “Get online without worrying about the cost”. Small print at the bottom of the poster stated “Truly unlimited means use as many MG/GB as you like, but you can’t use your phone as a modem (tethering), for peer to peer file sharing or for making internet phone calls”.
Issue
Nine complainants challenged whether the claim that the internet was “Truly Unlimited” was misleading, because they believed there were restrictions.
Response
Everything Everywhere Ltd t/a T-Mobile (T-Mobile) pointed out that, typically, internet plans had either a fixed data allowance or were ‘unlimited’ with a corresponding fair use policy (FUP) to stop excessive and abusive use of the service. They understood that FUPs should only exclude atypical users from ‘unlimited’ products. They said they had launched a new pay monthly plan with inclusive "truly unlimited internet" on all plans costing more than £25 per month. They explained that the plans did not have a data allowance or a FUP, and that customers could use as much data as they wanted and would not incur extra charges or have their internet connection slowed or stopped in response to the amount of data used. They reiterated that the small print stated “Truly unlimited means use as many MB/GB as you like, but you can’t use your phone as a modem (tethering), for peer to peer file sharing or for making internet phone calls”. They explained that those exclusions related to unusual types of internet activity, and that the vast majority of their customers used internet on their phone for simple browsing. They said that they had included the exclusions in the small print for clarity, and felt that these exclusions were fair and reasonable.
They said that tethering (using the phone to connect a laptop to the internet via their network) was not included, as they had a range of mobile broadband plans that were specifically and better designed to let customers use their handset as a modem. They said mobile broadband was also better for peer to peer file sharing and for customers that wanted to exchange large files of data over the network. They said there were commercial reasons why internet phone calls were not permitted (including the protection of their network) and their understanding was that most or all of those types of use were excluded from all of the major mobile phone operators internet plans. They did not consider that those types of excluded internet use were significant limitations to the internet service as customers could perform all the usual activities of viewing web pages, streaming video, downloading content and social networking as much as they wanted without limitation.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered that “Truly Unlimited Internet” was a very strong claim, and went beyond a typical “unlimited” internet claim, which we considered consumers understood would be likely to be subject to some limitations such as a FUP.
Although we noted that the plan was not subject to a FUP and that the three exceptions/restrictions were set out in the ads' small print, we considered that, to all intents and purposes, where an ad claimed that a plan was “Truly Unlimited”, exclusions would be contrary to a consumer’s expectations. We therefore considered that the information in the small print contradicted the headline claim “Truly Unlimited”.
Because we considered that exclusions to an internet plan advertised as “Truly Unlimited” would be contrary to consumers’ expectations and because we understood that restrictions had been imposed on the plan, we concluded that the claim was misleading.
The claim breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation), 3.9 (Qualification) and 3.11 (Exaggeration).
Action
The claim must not appear again in its current form.
