According to recent reports, a BT broadband advert has been banned after misleading customers about the speed of its Infinity broadband service.

The ad from BT, featured on TV, press and internet ads, promised customers broadband speeds "unbeatable" speeds only to be challenged by companies, such as Virgin Media, by claiming that these speeds were only available for certain packages.

According to BT, in May 2011 Infinity had an upload speed of 8.8Mbps and a download speed of 33.8Mbps, which was four times higher than the national average according to an Ofcom report. However, the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has said that it has seen no support to BT's claims and agreed with Virgin Media stating they were misleading.

The ASA said in a recent statement:

"We noted that the claim 'Do more online with three times faster fibre optic broadband' was immediately followed by text that discussed uploading and downloading activities.

"We considered that that implied BT's fibre optic broadband was three times faster for those activities, and that consumers were likely to read the claim as referring to the activities listed in the ad.

"We therefore considered the claim had not been substantiated and concluded it was misleading."