Is this misleading by BT

I was looking at BT broadband pricing and noticed below statement but is it misleading? If I said I was sending a dedicated taxi to your front door would you expect 29 other people to be in the taxi when it arrived.

Stream and download as much as you like, with a dedicated fibre connection direct to your home

Certainly looks like it. The only dedicated part is the fibre from CBT to home and the implication seems clear.

You could argue it's Fibre all the way to your home not shared with others.. Debatable..
The technology point is kind of irrelevant

The fibre cable that runs to your house isn't shared with anybody else, so it's accurate. I assume it's to set it apart from Hyperoptic FTTB style deployments.

True, however my thoughts on the second phrase are coloured by the first. In isolation the remark about dedicated fibre could be argued but IMHO the first phrase suggests dedicated capacity which isn't the case. The Openreach product has a prioritised rate but no guarantee.

In reply to a post by jpm:

The fibre cable that runs to your house isn't shared with anybody else, so it's accurate.

I would disagree, the dedicated bit is from the splitter to the property the rest isn't dedicated so to make a sweeping statement without quantifying it is misleading in my opinion.

Then you can get into the weeds about whether a leased line is dedicated or not because it's only 'yours' back to the exchange.

In any case this would fall under the remit of the ASA who were happy for FTTC to be sold as fibre, so I wouldn't be holding my breath for them to do anything.

BT could also argue that the fibre is dedicated to your internet connection, which is true, and that they made no claims over whether it was dedicated to your sole use. The wording is vague enough that I doubt any sort of complaint would go anywhere.

Edited by jpm (Mon 22-May-23 17:27:14)

I read it differently if I’m honest. I read it as “the fibre is dedicated to you and is not split off to copper in the cabinet or at the exchange”

Almost get a fibre line the whole way not one that’s split before it comes to you.

Then I thought huh? That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense either as it is split

In reply to a post by jpm:

Then you can get into the weeds about whether a leased line is dedicated or not because it's only 'yours' back to the exchange.

In any case this would fall under the remit of the ASA who were happy for FTTC to be sold as fibre, so I wouldn't be holding my breath for them to do anything.

BT could also argue that the fibre is dedicated to your internet connection, which is true, and that they made no claims over whether it was dedicated to your sole use. The wording is vague enough that I doubt any sort of complaint would go anywhere.

A leased line would be dedicated back to wherever it's terminated; may be an exchange or may be further.. but either way we know nothing on the Internet is dedicated

It is shared, so in my view is not dedicated, BT are not the only ones who don't point it out.

There are several dictionary definitions of ‘Dedicated’ , this is one ,
exclusively allocated to or intended for a particular purpose.
"a dedicated high-speed rail link from the Channel Tunnel"
Taking this definition, it could be argued that the ‘fibre’ is dedicated in that it has a single purpose as a medium for data transmission, and not a shared medium like a copper pair , used for both (narrowband) 0.3-3.4Khz telephony , and broadband ‘data’ .

Edited by Iniltous (Mon 22-May-23 20:17:49)

In reply to a post by dect:

I was looking at BT broadband pricing and noticed below statement but is it misleading? If I said I was sending a dedicated taxi to your front door would you expect 29 other people to be in the taxi when it arrived.

Stream and download as much as you like, with a dedicated fibre connection direct to your home

Is a point-to-point fibre network any more or less “dedicated” than a PON design fibre network though?

At some point there is contention and sharing of a resource/pipe/bandwidth.

It’s just semantics.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

It’s just semantics.

I know, I'm clearly not going to be losing any sleep over it just thought it was a better conversation piece than discussing a letter from Zzoomm 🤣

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

It’s just semantics.

I know, I'm clearly not going to be losing any sleep over it just thought it was a better conversation piece than discussing a letter from Zzoomm 🤣

we could talk about g.fast !!!!!!!!

Its not unusual to have two experts in a court case arguing the complete opposite because one is working for the prosecution and one for the defence.

When we have to get the dictionary out for exact meanings for ever day words it says a lot and using specific words to make something seem one thing when its actually another may not be misleading in the eyes of the law but it never smell right either

In reply to a post by Taras:

we could talk about g.fast !!!!!!!!

I hear the latest is 5G @ £12 and FTTP is rubbish by all accounts.

In reply to a post by dect:

Its not unusual to have two experts in a court case arguing the complete opposite because one is working for the prosecution and one for the defence.

This has actually been quite an interesting discussion. Some good points made!

Am I right that in a PON network 'everyone's' traffic is being delivered to every fibre on the segment? your ONT being responsible for extracting 'your' data

So not dedicated, not even a little bit !

I always found it odd when a supplier told me we had a "dedicated account manager" - it certainly did not mean that the account manager only worked on our account...

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

There are several dictionary definitions of ‘Dedicated’ , this is one ,
exclusively allocated to or intended for a particular purpose.
"a dedicated high-speed rail link from the Channel Tunnel"
Taking this definition, it could be argued that the ‘fibre’ is dedicated in that it has a single purpose as a medium for data transmission, and not a shared medium like a copper pair , used for both (narrowband) 0.3-3.4Khz telephony , and broadband ‘data’ .

But people should be told that they are sharing and could end up with a slower speed than they paid for?
If i paid for a taxi just for me, I would be a bit annoyed if I had to share it with someone.

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by Taras:

we could talk about g.fast !!!!!!!!

I hear the latest is 5G @ £12 and FTTP is rubbish by all accounts.

No good for games, so I have been informed, Ping is not very good, also 5G still is not great for many people and some still can't get it.
I looked into mobile broadband, just stick a router on the shelf and away you go.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

There are several dictionary definitions of ‘Dedicated’ , this is one ,
exclusively allocated to or intended for a particular purpose.
"a dedicated high-speed rail link from the Channel Tunnel"
Taking this definition, it could be argued that the ‘fibre’ is dedicated in that it has a single purpose as a medium for data transmission, and not a shared medium like a copper pair , used for both (narrowband) 0.3-3.4Khz telephony , and broadband ‘data’ .

But people should be told that they are sharing and could end up with a slower speed than they paid for?
If i paid for a taxi just for me, I would be a bit annoyed if I had to share it with someone.

but you don't get a dedicated lane on the road for it even if your taxi is dedicated

In reply to a post by Taras:

we could talk about g.fast !!!!!!!!

Nah, that's old technology.
https://imgur.com/dDRN9Pc

In reply to a post by john_32:

Am I right that in a PON network 'everyone's' traffic is being delivered to every fibre on the segment? your ONT being responsible for extracting 'your' data

So not dedicated, not even a little bit !

If you want a really dedicated line to your home then you need to stick to copper

In reply to a post by ian72:

I always found it odd when a supplier told me we had a "dedicated account manager" - it certainly did not mean that the account manager only worked on our account...

You make a really good point, seems we can put the word 'dedicated' in front of a lot of things to give the feeling of exclusivity when in fact its really not.

In reply to a post by john_32:

Am I right that in a PON network 'everyone's' traffic is being delivered to every fibre on the segment? your ONT being responsible for extracting 'your' data

That is my understanding

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by ian72:

I always found it odd when a supplier told me we had a "dedicated account manager" - it certainly did not mean that the account manager only worked on our account...

You make a really good point, seems we can put the word 'dedicated' in front of a lot of things to give the feeling of exclusivity when in fact its really not.

On the other side of the coin, the account manager is dedicated in terms of the fact that you are always dealing with one account manager rather than whoever picks up the phone in a call centre. That account manager has one part of the job as being dedicated to your account. You have football fans who are dedicated to their club but still manage to do lots of other things with their lives.

In reply to a post by seb:

but you don't get a dedicated lane on the road for it even if your taxi is dedicated

Granted, but we know this, but people don't know that their fibre is shared, if it makes a difference to them, that is not the point, but it should be in the t&Cs, I had a look at the BT site a few moments ago and there is nothing at all about Fibre to the premises being a shared service, unless i missed it.

I am kind of beyond the debate since Ofcom/ASA seemed happy with "fibre" not being fibre thing..

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by john_32:

Am I right that in a PON network 'everyone's' traffic is being delivered to every fibre on the segment? your ONT being responsible for extracting 'your' data

So not dedicated, not even a little bit !

If you want a really dedicated line to your home then you need to stick to copper

or do upgrades and go isdn 😂

In reply to a post by seb:

I am kind of beyond the debate since Ofcom/ASA seemed happy with "fibre" not being fibre thing..

and when people call "fttp"; "full fibre broadband" .............arrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

In reply to a post by Taras:

and when people call "fttp"; "full fibre broadband" .............arrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Sorry, I'm guilty of calling it 'full fibre' (without including the word broadband on the end) when generalising both Openreach and Altnet products

In reply to a post by Taras:

In reply to a post by seb:

I am kind of beyond the debate since Ofcom/ASA seemed happy with "fibre" not being fibre thing..

and when people call "fttp"; "full fibre broadband" .............arrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Thing is... this is what people know it as. We had this thing where we insisted it was Mbps not "meg".. but you throw that in on a radio show and you are actually confusing people... We'll correct MB/s but meg vs Mbps.. not worth it..

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by john_32:

Am I right that in a PON network 'everyone's' traffic is being delivered to every fibre on the segment? your ONT being responsible for extracting 'your' data

So not dedicated, not even a little bit !

If you want a really dedicated line to your home then you need to stick to copper

The copper line is only dedicated as far as the cabinet (FTTC) or exchange (ADSL), at which point your traffic is aggregated with hundreds of other users and sent down a single fibre to the head-end exchange.

Hence it's same as PON, which is dedicated as far as the splitter, except with PON only 32 users are aggregated together.

Edited by candlerb (Tue 23-May-23 12:02:05)

In reply to a post by seb:

I am kind of beyond the debate since Ofcom/ASA seemed happy with "fibre" not being fibre thing..

But Ofcom and ASA allowed FTTC to be called fibre, which is why people get confused and some think they are already on Fibre.

In reply to a post by Taras:

and when people call "fttp"; "full fibre broadband" .............arrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

But it is full fibre broadband, even sky say it is on their adverts.

Quite. But the point is marketing language has just overtaken things..
"AirFiber" is the worst

In reply to a post by seb:

Thing is... this is what people know it as. We had this thing where we insisted it was Mbps not "meg".. but you throw that in on a radio show and you are actually confusing people... We'll correct MB/s but meg vs Mbps.. not worth it..

i will in a convo use both - initially megabits and then onwards just megs. But calling every type of networking technology "broadband" is nuts. that said vdsl, is really frequency aggregation rather than broadband

And just about no one outside of tech knows what VDSL is.. FTTC they MAY have heard of

In reply to a post by seb:

And just about no one outside of tech knows what VDSL is.. FTTC they MAY have heard of

Oh yeah thats soo true. it was broadband but superfast broadband for the marketeers lol

and go isdn

… you’ll have to hurry, it’s being switched off when PSTN goes.

"AirFiber" is the worst

You can lie through thin air now ? Wow !

I think it's important to see the wording...

'Stream and download as much as you like, with a dedicated fibre connection direct to your home'

as an advertising slogan rather than a technical statement.

To the average person in the street I'd expect this to strongly suggest that they have something to themselves.
The word 'direct' is also confusingly used. Most people would think that the other end of this direct fibre is at the exchange not the reality of the nearest pole or chamber they walk over every day.

Will PONs make a difference; of course. Will it be perfect for everyone at all times; no.

For me the topology is too similar to that of DOCSIS, and we know how well that works, particularly in the upstream.

And what difference would it make? Suppose there were separate fibres from each property to the exchange: then the ISPs would just plug them into PON splitters, and the splitters into an OLT, to save ports.

Putting that splitter in the street makes no difference to performance, but it saves on spaghetti back to the exchange.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

And what difference would it make? Suppose there were separate fibres from each property to the exchange: then the ISPs would just plug them into PON splitters, and the splitters into an OLT, to save ports.

Putting that splitter in the street makes no difference to performance, but it saves on spaghetti back to the exchange.

Statistical contention? A gig shared over a 10G port is better than a gig over a 2.4G port even if each customer has the same amount of capacity on the connection.

Its a real shame there is no mechanism on the forum to cast a vote when debating a topics like this

In reply to a post by dect:

Its a real shame there is no mechanism on the forum to cast a vote when debating a topics like this

No need for votes.. I'm right and everyone who disagrees is wrong
Life is simpler that way

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

In reply to a post by candlerb:

And what difference would it make? Suppose there were separate fibres from each property to the exchange: then the ISPs would just plug them into PON splitters, and the splitters into an OLT, to save ports.

Putting that splitter in the street makes no difference to performance, but it saves on spaghetti back to the exchange.

Statistical contention? A gig shared over a 10G port is better than a gig over a 2.4G port even if each customer has the same amount of capacity on the connection.

Depends.. if the 2.5G is hardly used it may be faster than the 10G which may be more heavily used. It's about the user experience rather than the contention ratio or pipe size. Agreed that 2x1G users on 1G shared is bad, 20x1G users on 10G is way way nicer (even 200x1G users on 10G is probably great mostly)

In reply to a post by seb:

No need for votes.. I'm right and everyone who disagrees is wrong
Life is simpler that way

If only we had a few world leaders with that view life would be scary, oh wait we do!!!

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by seb:

No need for votes.. I'm right and everyone who disagrees is wrong
Life is simpler that way

If only we had a few world leaders with that view life would be scary, oh wait we do!!!

If only we could consign all those people to run their own forums and not countries, problem solved

In reply to a post by seb:

If only we could consign all those people to run their own forums and not countries, problem solved

🤣

Yes, I'd say there is something misleading or logically wrong about this quote.

Stream and download as much as you like, with a dedicated fibre connection direct to your home

When it says "Stream and download as much as you like" it implies more towards having an unlimited bandwidth and it has nothing to do with whether we have a dedicated fibre connection or not.

Mostly all packages nowadays whether copper, hybrid or wireless has unlimited bandwidth. So by this logic we can all download and stream as much as we like, we don't exactly need full fibre for that!

BT should be conveying the actual benefits of a full fibre connection and from a marketing point of view, this slogan or quote is somewhat weak as it doesn't really convince the consumer why they should switch.

A better slogan or quote would've been "Stream and download worry-free from disruptions with a dedicated fibre optic connection direct to your home".
There should be a compelling case and a better advertisement to convince the consumer why they should switch to Full Fibre. For example a quicker, lower latency or reliable connection (no drop-outs) in the middle of your online gaming or let's just say during your live video streaming so you can have a frustration-free experience. No more freezing and buffering issues to worry about ever again!

I'd say the most important reasons for wanting Full Fibre are having a more reliable internet connection that doesn't drop out, having faster symmetrical download speeds and having lower latency are the strongest reasons for wanting a dedicated fibre connection.

Not many people are informed of these benefits, most layman users will say, "Oh I'm happy with FTTC, what's the need for FTTP"? "I can still download and stream as much as I like with FTTC"! That dedicated fibre connection should be followed with an explanation of its actual benefits and this slogan/quotation doesn't do that.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Yes, I'd say there is something misleading or logically wrong about this quote.

Stream and download as much as you like, with a dedicated fibre connection direct to your home

When it says "Stream and download as much as you like" it implies more towards having an unlimited bandwidth

To be more accurate, it implies unlimited *usage*. (Bandwidth ~= speed; whichever package you buy, the bandwidth is limited). But you're right, an FTTC connection also allows you to use it "as much as you like", from most ISPs anyway.

However, this is just marketing blurb. People don't care about the technical details. To get someone to buy something, you have to make them excited about it.

(Or in the case of Fibre Priority exchanges, you stop them from being able to buy the other thing)

In reply to a post by seb:

Quite. But the point is marketing language has just overtaken things..
"AirFiber" is the worst

I understand what you are getting at,

In reply to a post by seb:

And just about no one outside of tech knows what VDSL is.. FTTC they MAY have heard of

Very high-speed digital subscriber line, try saying that when you had a few.
a lot of people think FTTC is fibre and that is the reason why some are not interested in updating, Blame Ofcom and Openreach

Very high-speed digital subscriber line

VHS-DSL? Not as good as BetaMax-DSL but people will buy it anyway

I see this morning that BT have managed to get a Sky advert banned relating to Wifi although I still think the main broadband providers can say virtually anything without penalty these days as we have had so many years of the ASA/OFCOM allowing it.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

To be more accurate, it implies unlimited *usage*. (Bandwidth ~= speed; whichever package you buy, the bandwidth is limited). But you're right, an FTTC connection also allows you to use it "as much as you like", from most ISPs anyway.

I remember the days of traffic management and limits on how much you can use. Metronet was one that their basic tariff gave you so much data, and then you pay extra for anything you use above. i liked Metronet, in the day it was a good system that worked fine for me, these days it would not work.

However, this is just marketing blurb. People don't care about the technical details. To get someone to buy something, you have to make them excited about it.

The problem is there is not much to be excited about broadband wise these days unless you really had awful speeds and updating to Fibre will make things better.

When saw ZZoomm laying Fibre down the cycle path a couple of years ago I was excited, thinking great faster internet, but after I got thinking about things, I changed my view to I can do everything I need to do with what I have, so why the need to change.

(Or in the case of Fibre Priority exchanges, you stop them from being able to buy the other thing)

That happens a lot in this country, look at loyalty cards, we are not getting enough people using them, so we will link our offers with them, so if people want the offers they have to get the card. Microsoft with Windows 10, we will force people to update from Windows 7 and 8.
With Fibre in places which are not a Fibre Priority exchange, let make FTTC more expensive and FTTP cheaper.
We are being manipulated and people just allow it to happen.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Very high-speed digital subscriber line

VHS-DSL? Not as good as BetaMax-DSL but people will buy it anyway

Don't forget the Video 2000 format as well

In reply to a post by seb:

Statistical contention? A gig shared over a 10G port is better than a gig over a 2.4G port even if each customer has the same amount of capacity on the connection.

Depends.. if the 2.5G is hardly used it may be faster than the 10G which may be more heavily used. It's about the user experience rather than the contention ratio or pipe size. Agreed that 2x1G users on 1G shared is bad, 20x1G users on 10G is way way nicer (even 200x1G users on 10G is probably great mostly)


Always going to be exceptions however as a general rule even if you provision the same amount of capacity per customer or indeed a fair bit less on a bigger pipe you're going to be good. The basic premise is that there it's far less likely there will be say 10 of 100 users maxing out than 1 of 10 users maxing out.

200 x 1G users on 10G is a pretty common thing and works fine. By the time certain operators have collected traffic from a daisy chain of exchanges they're going to be right up there.

User experience is of course key. No visible contention is the aim for most. At the PON / cable segment provision enough for average peak usage + the maximum burst a single customer can draw is a regularly used planning model, and is where the Openreach 1.8 Gbit product over GPON may work.

Folks only use about 5 Mbit/s per household at peak, still. That's over full fibre. It's rising but that rate of increase has slowed.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Very high-speed digital subscriber line, try saying that when you had a few.

it should really be VHSDSL (and i just realised why it isnt 🙃😅😂 )

In reply to a post by seb:

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by seb:

No need for votes.. I'm right and everyone who disagrees is wrong
Life is simpler that way

If only we had a few world leaders with that view life would be scary, oh wait we do!!!

If only we could consign all those people to run their own forums and not countries, problem solved

one has ......... 😂 [well ex leader - thank god for the ex]

Looking at this another way, how would you sell FTTPoD over FTTP PON?

In addition to being truly dedicated, FTTPoD would not suffer from reliability problems caused by the nature of the shared fibre when other ONT on your segment fail by sending when they should not.

A 'dedicated' and 'direct' fibre connection is one when a single ONT connects to a single OLT.

In reply to a post by Eeeps:

Looking at this another way, how would you sell FTTPoD over FTTP PON?

In addition to being truly dedicated, FTTPoD would not suffer from reliability problems caused by the nature of the shared fibre when other ONT on your segment fail by sending when they should not.

A 'dedicated' and 'direct' fibre connection is one when a single ONT connects to a single OLT.

I get the last bit but am confused by the rest, FTTPoD and FTTP infrastructure are identical and so suffers with exactly the same issues and question about it being direct and dedicated.

Yep, oD still goes back to a splitter.

And the customers oD order will provide a CBT others may order service from too.

Edited by Zarjaz (Wed 24-May-23 14:41:12)

Not really. At no point when buying a broadband service are you buying anything other than a shared / aggregated service, be that at the access, core, transit or destination network

Good point. Perhaps everyone who is debating at great length how many angels can dance on the head of a pin can define for us where the demarcation point is between a dedicated and shared service. Is it at the ONT, CBT, head-end, internet spine, data centre or individual web-site. At some stage the service ceases to be dedicated and becomes common-user so what is the relevant criterion about which we are arguing?

Edited by GonePostal (Thu 25-May-23 14:08:42)

In reply to a post by ionic:

Not really. At no point when buying a broadband service are you buying anything other than a shared / aggregated service, be that at the access, core, transit or destination network

I think you have gone off at a tangent as everything after the 'Not really' has no relevance to the actual question. Those who regularly read and understand this forum are fully aware of your second point but this discuss was around the wording used by the providers to describe their service. There are large numbers of people in the UK that do not have a scooby how their broadband service gets to them and the descriptions used by the providers doesn't help and thus I raised the original question about if it was misleading.