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Cityfibre Finds Support for Fibre Broadband Adverts Legal Challenge

Monday, Jul 16th, 2018 (12:01 am) - Score 1,838

A Censuswide survey of 3,422 home broadband ISP users has found support for Cityfibre’s legal challenge of the current UK advertising rules, which they say “misleadingly” allows so-called hybrid fibre ISPs to promote their services as being “fibre optic” despite using slower metallic cables (e.g. copper).

Pure fibre optic ISPs generally deliver significantly faster speeds (i.e. they can handle multi-Gigabit or faster speeds) and are more reliable, while hybrid fibre (aka – part fibre) services use a mix of metallic and optical fibre cables, which tends to make them both a lot slower and less reliable.

Back in 2008 the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that it was happy for hybrid fibre services, such as those based off Openreach’s (BT) Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / G.fast) technologies or Virgin Media’s EuroDOCSIS using Hybrid Fibre Coax platform, to use “fibre” in their advertising because the optical fibre cable still accounted for a big chunk of their networks.

In the past few cared about this because Gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP/H) style networks were in the minority but all that is now beginning to change, particularly with the government’s recent push for nationwide coverage by 2033 (here). Last year the ASA finally agreed to review the situation but in the end they only recommended minor tweaks (here).

Naturally Cityfibre, which has built a lot of “full fibre” (FTTP) networks across the UK, disagreed and eventually managed to win a Judicial Review (here). In order to support that battle the company has today published the results of a new Censuswide survey (conducted during early July 2018), which it commissioned. Obviously there’s an element of vested interest here but the results are worth reflecting.

Summary of the Key Results

* The majority (86%) thought the type of cable connecting them to the internet made a difference to the speed they received, but 65% didn’t think their current connection relied on copper cables or hybrid copper-fibre, even though this is the case for most consumers.

* Some 24% think they already have fibre cables running all the way to their home (FTTP/H), despite this only being available to around 4% of UK properties.

* Close to half (45%) believe that services currently advertised as “fibre” deliver this type of connectivity as standard, highlighting how confusing the status quo has made broadband for consumers.

* Once the difference between hybrid copper-fibre connections and full fibre was explained, two thirds thought the advertising rules should be changed so that hybrid services could no longer be called “fibre”.

* While just under two thirds (65%) said their broadband provider had described their connection as “fibre”, only 17% thought this connection would include copper cables.

ISPreview.co.uk also ran a snap poll of 200+ respondents when the ASA announced their decision last year and at the time 83% agreed that only FTTH/P ISPs should be able to use “fibre broadband” in their advertising. Cityfibre’s current action has also received wide support from other full fibre ISPs, such as Gigaclear and Vodafone etc.

Cityfibre also said they’d written to the CEOs of all the major broadband providers (BT, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, Sky Broadband, Vodafone, EE and the Post Office) asking them to change the way they advertise broadband to customers now, rather than wait for the Judicial Review of the ASA’s decision to conclude. We suspect they’ll wait.

Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said:

“Years of misleading advertising of broadband speeds and technologies have left people totally confused about what they are paying for, undermining trust in the industry. It is time to put the customer at the heart of the full fibre rollout and ditch dishonest descriptions once and for all.

We are calling on all broadband providers to stop using the word “fibre” unless it is describing a full fibre connection. Rather than waiting for the backward-looking ASA to be forced to act, the industry should stand as one and pave the way for a new generation of connected homes, businesses, towns and cities across the UK.”

The challenge, win or lose, will remain the difficult task of trying to unpick something that has long since become established in the consumer subconscious, where the meaning of “fibre” has for many years now become diluted by slower hybrid (part) fibre services.

Meanwhile the ASA are about to put their counter argument to the court, although it’s not yet clear how long it will take the court to reach a conclusion or what they might recommend. Either way it would certainly be nice if this question could be cleared up, once and for all.

Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and .
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Comments
21 Responses
  1. Avatar photo Paul says:

    When G.Fast is being advertised as “Fibre Max” to distinguish it from VDSL as “Fibre” it seems clear that we’ve lost the plot.

    https://shop.ee.co.uk/broadband/fibre-max-broadband

    What will they call FTTDP G.Fast? “Fibre Max Max” or “A bit less copper than our other fibre” and as for FTTH, have they already run out of superlatives?

    1. Avatar photo NGA for all says:

      Nearly full fibre.

  2. Avatar photo Meadmodj says:

    Are we also then going to distinguish between the various FTTx technology approaches?
    The only way really is to drop all technical terms and state guarantee speed bands instead. As long as its reliable, performs as offered and is cheap that is what the average consumer is interested in.

  3. Avatar photo NE555 says:

    Unless the ASA can be persuaded to ban the word “fibre” entirely to describe services which aren’t fibre all the way, which seems unlikely, then all that will happen is that existing services will be marketed as “hybrid fibre” instead of “fibre”. The word “hybrid” generally has positive connotations – think Toyota Prius – and implies “best of both worlds”. Service providers will be quite happy with this.

    The true fibre providers will still have to find some other term to differentiate themselves. “True fibre” or “100% fibre” aren’t as snappy, and sound more like breakfast cereal.

    1. Avatar photo FibreFred says:

      “Higher in fibre when compared to other providers” 🙂

      As Meadmodj says. Better to drop the medium and concentrate on the speed. That is all the customer is interested in really.

    2. Avatar photo NGA for all says:

      @FibreFred – speed is constant, throughput varies. Super, ultra, the whole nomenclature is unrelated to the service. The ASA should point to the Ofcom and industry Broadband guidelines and highlight the need for a significant re-write.

      The latest paintwork on OR vans no longer reference ‘superfast’.

      The City Fibre complaint maybe too narrow to succeed. If they get into peak hour cross sectional bandwidth per registered user as a key determinant in defining the service, or the role of wifi in the last 50m metres then it is hard to see this been taken too seriously. Although our courts like our Parliament are a bit random.

      The service is defined by its limits – access throughout (packet loss, jitter) limited by line or device, peak hour throughput capacity and the content hosting service under the ISPs control.

    3. Avatar photo Chris@Ecom says:

      How would you distinguish this though? Example: our FTTH service is fibre right up to the customer’s router in their property, ie it’s entirely fibre on the bit that matters. There are however copper (CAT5/6) uplinks in our comms rooms and data centres though, and things like stacking cables in the access switches are copper, so technically we could not claim we are entirely fibre end to end even though these links make no performance difference. I realise I am being a bit facetious here, but I think the point is valid that the definition needs to be very clearly defined.

    4. Avatar photo NGA for all says:

      Chris@Ecom In posing the challenge in this manner City Fibre may get a short tactical PR win, but ultimately there will need to be a description describing a ‘data transport service’, defined by the limits of the service, peak hour throughput per registered user, expected throughput – with packet loss and jitter characteristics. I guess theoritical throughput is also relevant.

  4. Avatar photo 3G Infinity (now 4G going on 5G) says:

    Strange that its only UK that has this issue, everywhere else is happy with DSL/FTTC/Cable/FTTP.

    1. Avatar photo Carl T says:

      The US tried the fibre optic broadband thing but it was stopped.

  5. Avatar photo D is illusioned says:

    Shows the knowledge base if people that get FTTC and think that no further work takes place cahnaging anything int there home think that they have a complete fibre provision. seriously FTTC FTTP ADSL it isn’t really that hard City fibre is obviously trying to protect there investment but who was involved in the poll.

  6. Avatar photo Meadmodj says:

    They need to achieve the take-up rates and the speed/revenue they promised their investors. They think its just the word Fibre, its not.

  7. Avatar photo MikeW says:

    An ongoing waste of time.

    CityFibre’s judicial challenge only looks at whether the ASA followed the correct legal steps in reaching its decision. It makes no judgement over whether the “right” answer was reached.

    And even if the decision goes CityFibre’s way, all that happens is that the process gets redone in a legally valid way, but it can still reach the same conclusion.

    Still, it is all free advertising for CityFibre. Not bad given the number of residential customers they have.

  8. Avatar photo Gary says:

    It’s basically just wrong, and should be stopped.

    If i sold you an ‘Electric car’ which then turned out to have a diesel engine in it driving a generator for example, Or a Gas cooker which was actually an electric cooker but i provided the power from a gas fired power station i assume you’d be calling mis advertising.

    If its not delivered by fibre optics its not fibre broadband.

    I’m still on an old Adsl line but my backhaul is no doubt Fibre…. Do i have fibre broadband ? NO and neither do you if you have Fttc.

    1. Avatar photo D is illusioned says:

      Yeah hard to understand FTTP and FTTC both use fibre one to premises one to cabinet.
      Diesel engine driving a generator what a comparison a generator would be the unit supplying electricity but would still be DTTG Diesiel to the generator.

  9. Avatar photo Dave says:

    The way to get around this is to make the ISP’s average speed come into play.
    It doesn’t matter to the end user how the data gets there it matters at how soon they can use it normally.

    My suggestion would be that network operators are required to show how long it would take to download sample data.

    Have 3 download types required on every advertisement:
    An average OS update size
    An average movie size
    An average game size

    1. Avatar photo NE555 says:

      Personally, I’m not at all interested in the ISP’s average speed. I’m only interested in the actual speed they deliver to *my* property. They may advertise an average of 66Mbps on a particular service, but if I only get 20Mbps, then that’s great for those other customers, but is of no benefit to me. And if it’s 20Mbps today but 15Mbps tomorrow when it rains, that’s not great either.

      It’s the distance-sensitive and rate-adaptive aspects of VDSL which are the problem.

      I have no problem with someone using copper to deliver a service to me within a building, if it’s 1000baseT – because that technology gives me a fixed 1Gbps, and the technology is guaranteed to work as long as they’re using the right sort of cabling (CAT5e) and within specification limits (<90m).

      VDSL can't give me that. But fibre does: as long as I'm within the optical range, it works just the same as if I'm right next door to the OLT.

      That's just the layer 1 connectivity. Of course, there are also potential issues with overloaded backhaul links and congestion in upstream service provider. But as long as there is a competitive marketplace in service providers, I don't worry about that. Some service providers will be cheap and bad, and some will be more expensive and good, and I get to choose or change.

      What I need is a fast and reliable link *to* the service provider. That's where the likes of Cityfibre can provide a genuine benefit, and I can understand why they don't want their marketing message diluted.

  10. Avatar photo Echo Chamber Much says:

    No one in the real world gives a damn.

    Where I am, 1 mile from the exchange, approx 70% of the route has been overlaid with fibre.

    That’s more than double the minimum amount of pork that needs to be in a sausage to be able to call it a pork sausage. And about 40% more than the minimum amount of beef that needs to be in a burger to call it a beef burger.

    Marketing has a long established practice that the product doesn’t entirely need to consist of something in order to use the name. This is no different. Arguing against this shows deep misunderstanding to the point of idiocy.

  11. Avatar photo Graham Long says:

    “Fake” is a word that everyone seems to understand these days (“Fake News”, “Fake Britain” etc.) and people seem too lazy to bother understanding what “hybrid” means or how the “skin effect” attenuates high frequency signals in electrical conductors, so lets go for two simple descritions: Full Fibre and Fake Fibre. That way the marketing experts can still keep fibre in their descriptions and they simply add the popular word Fake to it. Problem solved.

    1. Avatar photo Echo Chamber Much says:

      I’m not sure the general public being ignorant of the finer points of counter electromotive force is really the point.

      The real point is no one gives a damn. So long as 50% of the route from the ex to the house is fibre I’m happy for it to be called fibre.

    2. Avatar photo Graham Long says:

      If only 50% of your line length is fibre and that is over 1.6km you would see very little benefit from having the other half fibre.

Comments are closed

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