The Commerce Commission has said that telecom giant Vodafone has misled customers through its advertisement campaign that breached the Fair Trading Act.

The firm exaggerated the coverage of its wireless broadband network, size of 3G networks and price of other telecom services in its mobile phone advertisement drive earlier this year.

Rubbishing the charges, Vodafone, the largest mobile phone services provider in New Zealand, claimed that it had never breached the code of conduct laid down by the regulator and always tried to meet the expectations of customers.

Mark Rushworth, Vodafone New Zealand's director of marketing, said, "We take these allegations seriously and have cooperated with the commission throughout."

The Commission, on the other hand, has counted a number of anomalies in the advertisement. The firm, as per commission, misinterpreted the broadband coverage under ''broadband everywhere'' marketing campaign between October 2006 and April 2008. Further, it misled customers by offering a $10 free airtime to registered customers.

Vodafone, having 53 per cent shares in New Zealand's telecom market, is a Newbury, England-based international mobile-phone services company. It is providing telecom services to about 4.8 million wireless customers in NZ with population of 4.3 million total populations.