The leading broadband companies in the UK are set to kick off a war of words over the use of certain terminology when advertising their broadband speeds.

Last week, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) stepped into the argument by advising the likes of BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media that they have to use the words "up to" when advertising their broadband speeds and not words such as "typical" or "average".

Virgin Media's CEO, Neil Berkett said...

"Despite increasingly ambitious claims made by some ISP's, the real world speeds actually being received by many broadband customers just aren't keeping up,"

He continued...

"We want other ISPs to acknowledge the speeds their customers are actually getting and urge the rest of the industry, Ofcom and the ASA to recognise the clear and urgent need for change and move towards advertising the average speed a clear majority of customers actually receive."

BT's Managing Director, John Petter also commented...

"The averages are no more relevant to me than the maximum. For providers to talk about averages is not the way forward."