Advertising Standards Authority ruling

The ASA have ruled that it is OK for Communications Providers (BT, Openreach, Virgin, TalkTalk, R100, BDUK, DSSB et al) to use the term 'fibre' to describe FTTC / VDSL over copper services. CityFibre have successfully obtained a judicial review of this ruling. Forum members may be interested to read CityFibre's views at:

https://www.cityfibre.com/news/two-thirds-broadband-...

and at:

https://www.coppersaurus.com/

I would be interested in members' comments.

I�m not too fussed about them using the term fibre for FTTC

However they should stop calling it fibre broadband. It�s not broadband. It�s very narrow.

Although it might make it easier if there was different terms, especially when trying to do price comparisons. I don�t have access to FTTC and most comparison sites say I�ve can�t get super fast broadband. Maybe they�ll update at some point in the next year or so.

That is because the price comparison sites are using very bad databases, or have just not bothered to understand FTTP.

A solution would be for them to talk to us, and we've mentioned it but no one is beating down the door.

In reply to a post by B31:

However they should stop calling it fibre broadband. It�s not broadband. It�s very narrow.

Not as narrow as a 33.6 kbps dial-up modem.

I do agree that FTTC and cable should not be called fibre however this brings up the problem of what they would call these services. Everyone is already used to the terminology and to stop calling it fibre all of a sudden will cause alot of customers to be confused. If full fibre was more prominent then it would probably make sense for the ASA to rule in City Fibre's favour.

I wonder what you would call a service where the underground cable from the cabinet to the pole is aluminium and the drop wire to the house from the pole is either Drop Wire No. 2 or No. 6 which is copper coated steel.

Cheers!

I do not think there is a problem calling it what it really is - FTTC is "DSL" (in this case) and coaxial is "cable". Could be confusing to customers initially, but in the long run will stop the misconceptions with what technology people actually have and allow for easier differentiation. You'd be surprised how many people believe their fibre-copper hybrid connection is true fibre optic to their premises.

On the continent, I am pretty sure it is common for DSL services (such as ADSL and VDSL) to just be called "DSL", cable services to be called "cable" and fibre optic to be called "FTTP"/"fibre". I think this is where they've got it right as there is a often a clear indication and seperation of services (of course, there are always cases where it is not so uniform and clear).

I think we're getting somewhere and improving clarify by classifying services by speed; using keywords such as "superfast" and "ultrafast" to describe connectivity. Ultimately, though, advertising is deceptive in a sense that people who do not know can't differentiate between the actual technologies easily. But one could argue that perhaps it does not matter as long as they are able to order the right products and are receiving the speeds as advertised for that product.

Ahh, those were the days!