Virgin Media has been reprimanded by the Advertising Standards Authority for an online campaign accusing rival broadband services of "conning" customers.

The campaign, called "Stop the broadband con" was aimed at changing the way other broadband providers advertised their services.

BT and Sky complained and the ASA ruled in their favour.

It means the campaign cannot appear in its current form again.

The website launched by Virgin included a letter from Richard Branson, claiming rivals were "not keeping their promises", a speed test, and links to Ofcom's official broadband report. It also featured a video, parodying Sky's broadband advert.

It encouraged users to share the information with their friends and it was this viral element of the campaign that allowed the ASA to apply its advertising rules to it.

"We considered the ad went beyond highlighting the disparity Virgin believed existed between advertised broadband speeds compared to those that were delivered and implied that other ISPs dealt with consumers dishonestly in relation to broadband speeds," the ASA ruling said.

Virgin Media argued that its campaign was intended to highlight "widespread dissatisfaction among consumers about the advertising of broadband speeds."

I so thought this thread would be about something else

Sky should be castigated. On my bundled exchange it's woeful. Rarely over 100k/sec, though I had over 800 once for about five minutes.

Not far, the issue is sky, my connection is 8mb.

I have had a couple of breaks in the service but only for an hour at most. For me I get a 14 Mbits connection all the time.

To be fair, Sky have a good rep on their own network, but I'm on a non LLU exchange.

To be fair, Sky have a good rep on their own network, but I'm on a non LLU exchange.

Probably anybody other than BT, but I can't bring myself to hand them any money and they're more expensive.