ASA Ban Misleading Full Fibre Claim from UK Wireless ISP 6G Internet

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned another advert for UK fixed wireless broadband ISP 6G Internet (IX Wireless), albeit this time for sending out a “misleading” leaflet promotion that claimed the provider offered “Full Fibre Speed Broadband” (Full Fibre is a term that’s typically only be used by FTTP networks).

The provider previously got into hot water with the ASA last August 2023 (here), which occurred after they were found to have caused confusion by “misleadingly implying that a sixth-generation mobile network existed and was able to be used by consumers”. 6G Internet uses WiFi based technology and is nothing to do with the future 6G mobile network standard.

Funnily enough, the original “6G” complaint also indirectly picked up on the provider’s questionable use of “full fibre” wording in their adverts (e.g. “6Ginternet: Full fibre speed broadband only £9.99 per month“), although they didn’t rule on that. But the new complaint relates to a separate leaflet advert that was seen at the end of September 2023 – after the ASA’s previous ruling.

The leaflet stated “Fixed Wireless Broadband* Full Fibre Speed Broadband from £21.99 per month. Based on a 24-month contract”. The asterisk linked to small print at the bottom of the leaflet which stated “*6Gi broadband is delivered using fixed wireless and full fibre technologies..”.

In its defence, the ISP said they believed consumers would understand the claim “Full Fibre Speed Broadband” to mean that the speed of their advertised 100Mbps fixed wireless broadband service delivered download speeds, which were equivalent to full fibre download services. The ASA rightly disagreed.

ASA Ruling Ref: A23-1213406 6G Internet Ltd

“Although we acknowledged that the ad also included the claim “Fixed Wireless Broadband”, which also appeared prominently, but was not presented in a stand-out colour, we considered its placement above the headline claim “Full Fibre Speed Broadband” likely created a significant degree of ambiguity for consumers when viewing the ad. We considered the small print, which stated “6Gi broadband is delivered using fixed wireless and full fibre technologies” did not sufficiently explain how the service worked and again implied that it was a full fibre product. The small print also stated “It is not provided over a mobile network and does not make use of 4G, 5G, or future 6G cellular technologies”, which we considered added to the impression that the service was not wireless and that, in some capacity, it utilised fibre to the premises FTTP technology.

We acknowledged 6Gi provided data on a small sample of 49 customers, which showed a download speed of 100 Mbps was achieved for all those customers at the point of installation, and that 90% of those customers continued to achieve that speed. We understood that 100 Mbps was at the lower end of speeds typically delivered using full fibre broadband. Notwithstanding that, because we considered consumers were unlikely to interpret the claim “Full Fibre Speed Broadband” to mean the product was not full fibre but that it offered speeds equivalent to full fibre products, we considered that data was not relevant.

For those reasons, we considered the ad gave the overall impression that the product being advertised was full fibre broadband. As that was not the case, we concluded the ad was likely to mislead consumers.”

The ASA thus banned the adverts in their current form and told the provider to ensure future ads “did not state or imply” that their service was a full fibre broadband product, when that was not the case.

As a side note, the case also revealed that 6Gi had just 789 customers on their network with a 100Mbps package, of which 366 had joined in 2023. Until recently that was their fastest package, although they have in the past few months launched both a 300Mbps and 200Mbps package option.