The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has ruled against a Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) web page advertising “unlimited data” SIM-only plans, in a decision published on 29 July 2026. The regulator did not find the word “unlimited” itself misleading — but it did find that a 500GB fair use threshold was buried in an expandable “The legal bit” section instead of sitting alongside the headline claims. For UK shoppers, the practical takeaway is that a fair use number on an unlimited plan should now be visible where you read the offer, not one click away.
The ruling (reference A26-1331986) is a part-upheld decision, meaning one of the two complaint points succeeded and the other did not.
What was advertised
According to the ASA’s ruling, the page on Utility Warehouse’s website promoted SIM-only deals with claims including “Get the UK’s best value SIM only deal”, references to unlimited data, 99% UK coverage and free EU roaming. A linked page used the phrasing “Unlimited data” and described “endless surfing, streaming, and scrolling”.
Neither page stated in the main body text that a fair use restriction applied. The qualification existed only inside an expandable block headed “The legal bit”, which contained the line “Data consumption subject to 500GB personal usage cap” along with links to the full terms and the fair use policy.
The complaint and what the ASA decided
A single complainant raised two challenges: whether the “unlimited” description was misleading given the 500GB fair use policy, and whether the restriction had been made sufficiently clear.
On the first point the ASA did not uphold the complaint. As reported by ISPreview and set out in the ruling itself, the regulator accepted that legitimate users who passed 500GB did not incur additional charges, service suspension or a reduction in speed. On that basis the threshold operated as an indicator of potential misuse rather than as a routine ceiling on ordinary use, so the unlimited description was not in itself misleading.
On the second point the ASA upheld the complaint. It treated the fair use policy as a significant condition that had to be clearly explained within the marketing communication. The regulator said consumers were unlikely to understand from the headline claims alone that any restriction applied, and would not necessarily click to expand “The legal bit” even where that section appeared beneath the main text — meaning the qualification could easily be overlooked.
The ad was found to breach CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 on misleading advertising, and rules 3.9 and 3.10 on qualifications.
What happens next
The ASA told Utility Warehouse that the ad must not appear again in the form complained about, and that it must ensure unlimited claims are directly qualified with the terms of its fair use policy. The ruling does not require any change to the plans themselves or to the 500GB threshold — it is about how the condition is presented.
Why this matters when comparing UK SIM plans
“Unlimited” is one of the most common words on UK SIM-only pages, and this ruling is a useful reminder of how to read it. Two things are worth separating:
- Whether a limit exists at all. Most unlimited plans carry some form of fair use or acceptable use policy. Its existence is normal, and the ASA has not treated it as automatically making an unlimited claim untrue.
- What actually happens when you cross it. This is the part that changes the value of a plan. In this case the ASA’s reasoning turned on the fact that legitimate customers were not charged extra, suspended or slowed after 500GB. Where a provider does apply throttling or charges beyond a threshold, that is a materially different offer even if the headline word is identical.
For anyone genuinely likely to use hundreds of gigabytes a month — tethering, home broadband replacement, heavy streaming — it is worth opening the fair use policy directly rather than relying on the headline. Following this ruling, that number should be easier to find on Utility Warehouse’s own pages.
Sources: the ASA ruling on Utility Warehouse Ltd (A26-1331986), published 29 July 2026, and ISPreview’s report of the same date.