{"id":11293,"date":"2016-03-07T08:53:28","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T08:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=11293"},"modified":"2016-03-07T09:08:45","modified_gmt":"2016-03-07T09:08:45","slug":"virgin-media-adverts-still-cant-tell-copper-coax-fibre-optic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2016\/03\/virgin-media-adverts-still-cant-tell-copper-coax-fibre-optic.html","title":{"rendered":"Virgin Media Adverts Still Can’t Tell Copper Coax from Fibre Optic"},"content":{"rendered":"

The seemingly endless debate about the pros and cons of advertising hybrid-fibre broadband connections as “fibre optic<\/em>” has once again reared its head after a number of refreshed adverts for Virgin Media<\/a>’s cable network began promoting their service as “optical fibre<\/em>” alongside pictures of what is clearly a copper core coaxial cable.<\/p>\n

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The situation is of course nothing new and has cropped up plenty of times before (examples here<\/a> and here<\/a>), although previously Virgin Media<\/a> has been slightly better with their promotions and up until recently they were at least mentioning the use of coax cable on some of their ads (we praised them for that).<\/p>\n

But today the new norm is for pictures of Virgin’s coax cable to be labelled as “optical fibre<\/em>“, which is confusing because some ISPs actually do provide significantly faster pure fibre optic connections to homes and businesses (e.g. Hyperoptic<\/a>, Gigaclear<\/a>, B4RN<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Coax cables are metal and carry electrical signals, while fibre optic lines are made of glass or plastic and carry signals using laser light (the later method is generally much faster).<\/p>\n

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Next generation optical fibre. Illustrated with a copper coaxial cable. pic.twitter.com\/nS44h3dyOc<\/a><\/p>\n

— David Cannings (@edeca) February 16, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n