{"id":107773,"date":"2015-12-18T13:43:11","date_gmt":"2015-12-18T11:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=107773"},"modified":"2015-12-18T13:43:11","modified_gmt":"2015-12-18T11:43:11","slug":"4g-boasting-backfires-on-vodacom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/107773\/4g-boasting-backfires-on-vodacom\/","title":{"rendered":"4G boasting backfires on Vodacom"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>The Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) has ruled that Vodacom should remove its 4G claim from its marketing material.\u00a0This followed a competitor complaint from Cell C.<\/p>\n

Vodacom has recently unveiled its latest Summer Days outdoor advertising campaign, which include a 4G logo to promote its network (see Vodacom playing with fire<\/a><\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Vodacom proudly describes its LTE network as 4G (which is technically incorrect), despite the fact it fiercely attacked Cell C for not accurately using the term 4G, previously.<\/p>\n

The Vodacom billboard, which was placed directly opposite Cell C\u2019s head office in Midrand, was bound to attract the attention of the company it dragged to the ASA<\/a><\/strong> for claiming to have a 4G network in 2010.<\/p>\n

Cell C lodged a complaint with the ASA, saying that Vodacom\u2019s use of the term 4G to describe its LTE network is inaccurate, based on Vodacom\u2019s own criteria<\/a><\/strong> it used in the 2010 ASA complaint.<\/p>\n

Cell C added that the use of the term 4G is a \u201cflagrant and egregious breach of the ASA Code, and a complete disrespect of the standards laid down by the ASA\u201d.<\/p>\n

Vodacom responded, saying that the term 4G has been adopted for LTE networks, which should allow it to use the term to describe its network.<\/p>\n

Vodacom partly relied on feedback from Professor Michael Walker, who said that Vodacom\u2019s LTE network provides a substantial level of improvement in performance and capabilities over 3G technologies.<\/p>\n

The ASA dismissed Walker\u2019s submission, highlighting that he is a Vodafone Fellow and a technical adviser for the company. Vodafone is the majority shareholder of Vodacom.<\/p>\n

The ASA ruled that Vodacom\u2019s 4G claim is unsubstantiated, and that it should withdraw its advertising using the term with immediate effect.<\/p>\n

More on Vodacom<\/h3>\n

Beware these MTN, Vodacom billing scams<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

New Vodacom-Neotel merger deal moves ahead<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Vodacom drops spectrum from Neotel buyout deal<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

PIC ups stake in Vodacom<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\ufeff\ufeffThe Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) has ruled that Vodacom should remove its 4G claim from its marketing material.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":90256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2278,2170,26,27],"class_list":["post-107773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-4g","tag-asa","tag-headline","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107775,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107773\/revisions\/107775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}