Orange mislead punters on coverage claim

THE UK'S Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that the Orange mobile network misled punters when it said that it had the broadest coverage in Blighty.

The advertising watchdog barked that a long-running £4 million advertising campaign by Orange "had not been substantiated" and "was likely to mislead".

Orange put up shedloads of posters claiming to have the country's "biggest 3G network covering more people than any other".

However rival network operator Three complained. Its sales and marketing director, Marc Allera, said, "Orange's claims in its advertising to have the UK's biggest 3G network were completely unsubstantiated and misleading for consumers."

Allera said that mobile users had enough difficulty getting a consistent picture of how 3G networks compare when it comes to coverage without being fed a confusing picture.

In fact Three claims it has the biggest 3G network both by population coverage and geographic coverage and it has the data to prove it, Allera said.

We are not sure if Three has ever put this claim in an advert. However it does show that there is some dispute about how you measure the biggest mobile network. µ