British Telecommunications plc Holborn Centre 120 Holborn London EC1N 2TE	Media: Insert Sector: Computers and telecommunications Complaints upheld in last 12 reports: 4 Complaints from: Kent & Surrey
Complaint: Objections to a newspaper insert, advertising telephone lines, that was headlined “Stay in touch how you like, when you like with BT”. Under the subheading “Enjoy the flexibility of an additional line” the advertisement stated “Having an additional line can make your life a lot easier, because it means you don’t have to choose between using the Internet, your phone or fax. An additional line gives you the flexibility to: • Surf the Internet and receive calls • Use one line for personal calls and one for business calls.” The complainants objected that the advertisement was misleading, because it did not make clear that in installing an additional line, the existing line was doubled reducing the available bandwidth of the line; that meant Internet access would be significantly slower using the service. (Ed 10: )	Adjudication: Complaints upheld The advertisers explained that Digital Access Carrier System (DACS) technology was used to provide additional analogue telephone lines, supporting a modem speed of 28.8 Kilobytes per second (Kbs). They argued that they were not obliged to guarantee Internet speeds over the Public Service Telephone Network (PSTN), and therefore did not feel it necessary to highlight any potential reduction in modem speeds in the advertisement. The Authority understood that on a standard telephone line connection data transfer speeds of up to 56Kbs were achievable, although in practice data transfer speeds were normally about 44Kbs, but that with DACS technology the additional line would support transfer speeds of 28.8 Kbs only, approximately half of that that could be achieved with a standard single line. It considered that consumers would not realise Internet access speeds would be reduced by fitting the DACS box to provide an additional line and concluded that, because that was such a significant factor, the omission was misleading. The Authority asked the advertisers to amend the advertisement with help from the Committee of Advertising Practice Copy Advice team.