Cityfibre Recruit TV Celeb Dominic Littlewood to Fight Fake Fibre Ads

Fibre optic UK network builder Cityfibre has recruited TV celebrity Dominic Littlewood – famous for The One Show, Fake Britain and Cowboy Builders (among others) – to help support their on-going campaign against “misleading” uses of “fibre” terminology in adverts by slower hybrid fibre broadband ISPs.

The Coppersaurus campaign centres on the fact that hybrid fibre (part fibre) services, such as Openreach’s Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) based technologies, use a mix of metallic (e.g. copper) and optical fibre cables, which makes them slower and less reliable than “full fibre” (FTTP) ISPs.

By comparison pure fibre optic ISPs (FTTP / FTTH) run their optical fibre cable all the way to your doorstep, which can thus deliver significantly faster and more reliable speeds (e.g. multi-Gigabit). In the past, when FTTP/H providers and networks were in the extreme minority, this debate wasn’t as important but now they’re growing.. rapidly (example).

However so far the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has declined to clamp down on the confusion (here) and as a result Cityfibre is fighting for a Judicial Review of the watchdog’s position (here), which if successful would force the ASA to at least review their policy. As part of that their new campaign has been helping to drum up support in the fight against “fake fibre ads“.

Now the operator has gone one step further by securing the support of recognisable TV consumer champion Dominic Littlewood, whom has today taken Cityfibre’s campaign to the doors of the ASA headquarters in London.

Dominic Littlewood said:

“Consumers in the UK have consistently been buying broadband services that aren’t really what the ads are telling us they are.

We need change to help educate UK consumers about the differences between true fibre and copper-based broadband services, so that they are well prepared for the copper switch off when it comes.

It shouldn’t be the responsibility of the consumer to work out what is actually the real thing – nor should they be paying a premium for a technology that they are not currently getting.”

Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said:

“It’s great to have someone like Dominic supporting the campaign, as he champions consumer rights, takes companies and regulatory bodies to task where injustice is being done and sees that’s the case here.

Fundamentally, the ASA still has its head in the sand on broadband advertising. It is ignoring the bigger picture on the future of the UK’s full fibre connectivity while consumers lose trust and unknowingly overpay for second-rate services. This must change and quickly.”

Meanwhile the court case is steadily nearing a conclusion, although even if successful the onus would still be on the ASA to decide what, if anything, they should change. A victory might also place a question mark over Gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Building (FTTB) providers, such as Hyperoptic, where only a small bit of the overall connection is technically copper (i.e. the short run of cabling inside a building).