Ronski, I was just trying to make the point that FTTC is exactly like FTTB in that they are both partial fibre. Wasn’t commenting on VM, other than to respond (agreeably I thought) to your own comments
Of course, FTTC is crap compared with FTTB, and customers should be made aware of that fact. But if FTTB can call itself fibre, even though it stops short of customer premises, how we justify saying that FTTC isn’t fibre, just because it stops short of customer premises? I’m all in favour of communicating the facts as to how great FTTB is, and crap FTTC is, but simply denying that it is fibre is a copout, because it is, just as FTTB is too.
My own preference would simply be to tell it like it is. Make sure FTTC products describe themselves as are only FTTC, allowing customers to easily recognise its inferiority. Personally I’d have no problems if ASA insisted on the words ‘crap fibre’ being included in adverts, but they can’t insist that the word ‘fibre’ is removed, unless same treatment is applied to FTTB.
For that matter, they should also make sure that FTTB products emphasise they are ‘only’ FTTB, allowing customers to research the possibility that a competing true FTTP service might be even better. Not sure where VM fits into that argument, but it must fit somewhere.
I don’t agree that ADSL could be called fibre, that would be daft. Leaving VM aside we are referring to the service we purchase from BT, which extends from our home to the telephone exchange. What happens in the core network, or even the international network, is entirely irrelevant to the definition of the service we are discussing. If the core network contains bits of ultra high speed ethernet, would we forbid FTTP from calling itself full fibre? Of course we wouldn’t.