By “Unlimited” we, er, mean, limited. Very limited.

Misleading advertising?

I’m surprised to see the way ISPs and telcos still describe their products so misleadingly, even after the trouble that Talk-talk got into with the ASA about offering free broadband “Forever”. Orange are currently running a campaign that uses the word unlimited broadband in the same breath as “talk” and “texts”. If you go to the website you’ll find that talk is in fact very limited – either limited to just landline calls or just off-peak, on-network mobile calls.

It’s not a good idea to draw people in with false promises. Why do it? It upsets your potential customers just as they are coming in the door for the first time, and makes you look untrustworthy. A few months ago I signed up to a Three mobile contract with their “mobileWeb” add-on. It turns out, they actually meant “mobileWalledGarden”, i.e. you could only access a small set of specially selected sites. I took the handset back and axed the contract. No more Three for me, for now.

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