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Author Topic: Ireland Doing What the UK ASA Failed to do – BAN “Fake Fibre” Ads  (Read 8644 times)

Bowdon

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https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/07/ireland-doing-what-the-uk-asa-failed-to-do-ban-fake-fibre-ads.html

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According to the Irish Times, the ASA for Ireland (ASAI) plans to impose stricter guidance that will stop providers promising “fibre” in their broadband adverts if the connection(s) still relies on old copper or aluminium lines (FTTC / VDSL, Hybrid Fibre Coax etc.).

I can't help but think that BT/OR shot themselves in the foot by not supporting CityFibre when they challenged the UK ASA on fake fibre. Now we have a situation were people think they already have "fibre" so are less likely to move to genuine full fibre when that option becomes available to them. Ironically BT/OR will be the most affected by this because its only them that have called hybrid products full fibre, and also allow their customer isp's to misrepresent what the OR product is.
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Weaver

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Even this annoys me. Hybrid fibre - no such thing because the bottleneck is all that matters and that’s the copper. I am not going to start calling my EO ADSL 2 copper lines ‘hybrid’ because there is fibre running for 500 mi from London to the Broadford exchange. Yes that 500 mi of copper is highly relevant because it is vital, yet it’s a universal now, everyone has fibre to their exchange from the outside world, so it is not a consideration. My line is the bit going into my house and only that segment. This much is obvious to every one of us.

The ASA fibre thing was a disgrace: simply blatant lying was allowed and excuses were made for the indefensible, given presumably for corrupt reasons or incompetence, who knows?
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Chrysalis

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The UK is the only country I know off worldwide that allows copper services to be advertised as fibre.  At least on a widespread basis.
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sevenlayermuddle

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Just for the record, I personally fully support the UK ASA’s position.   :)

My opinion remains...  My own broadband speed is about ten times as fast as my closest neighbour, because I purchase an FTTC package, he purchases a legacy ADSL package.   To the layman (as he is), using the word “fibre” to distinguish the two is entirely appropriate, in these very common circumstances.  And to the expert (as many here are), we won’t be confused, as we all know the differences between FTTC and FTTH, and all the in-betweens like FTTdP.

But all these arguments were done to death a few months ago, when ASA ruled against CityFibre’s complaints, quite correctly imo.     

I was careful to just state above as ‘an opinion’, as I know others feel differently, as spelled out in previous threads.   Come what may, let’s agree to mutually respect one another’s points of view?   :)
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Ronski

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OK, my opinion is I totally disagree with your opinion, but I accept its your opinion  :P
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johnson

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I know this is rehashing an old thread and I do respect your opinion 7lm, sure the distinction is clear in you and your neighbours case.

But if you forget about the technical inaccuracies of calling DSL "fibre" and take a view solely based on end user experience, eg - your 10x connection with 'fibre' vs his, you have to consider that the product being sold as 'fibre' comes with it all the technical difficulties that DSL has had all these years and more. Degradation due to crosstalk, susceptibility to noise, sensitivity to CPE devices, the myriad faults that can occur on a copper line due to bad joints - damage - water - etc that take a monumental amount of effort by end users and openreach to sort out. All the things that people come to this forum to seek help with. They are almost completely eliminated with an actual fibre connection.

If you call DSL with the box a bit closer to your house fibre you devalue the actual reality of a fibre connection and reduce consumer pressure to ask for a better network.

Anyway, soap box away and apologies for bringing it up again. ;D
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sevenlayermuddle

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I’m not calling the copper bit fibre, I’m calling the fibre bit fibre.  And it is the fibre bit that makes the difference, between circa 2.5 Mbps and circa 25 Mbps.   Granted, the copper bit helps too being vdsl, but even if it were just adsl, the fibre bit still be having a massive contribution, reducing the length of copper from several miles a few hundred hards.

Another consideration is, my neighbour has his house on the market.   Potential purchasers are alarmed at his 2.5Mbps downloads and enquiring “isn’t  fibre available?”.  They ask that question to distinguish from other properties and villages that do not have Fibre at all, not to the home and not even to the village.  I have no hesitation in telling him to answer “yes, we have FTTC fibre to the village, Mr Muddle next door gets over 20Mbps”.

I’d far prefer that the answer was “Mr Muddle has FTTP”, or “... FTTdp”, or “..FTTR” of course.  But for now, “Mr Muddle has FTTC” is an accurate and helpful answer. In each of these cases of course, there is ‘F’ as in ‘Fibre’.

But I don’t expect to persuade anybody here, just reiterating my own firmly held opinions. :)
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johnson

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Another consideration is, my neighbour has his house on the market.   Potential purchasers are alarmed at his 2.5Mbps downloads and enquiring “isn’t  fibre available?”.  They ask that question to distinguish from other properties and villages that do not have Fibre at all, not to the home and not even to the village.  I have no hesitation in telling him to answer “yes, we have FTTC fibre to the village, Mr Muddle next door gets over 20Mbps”.

And if you had paid for FTTPoD but your neighbour could advertise their house as having fibre too?

Bah, its clear we are not going to change each others minds. I hope the discussion becomes irrelevant in the not to distant future  :)
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sevenlayermuddle

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Bah, its clear we are not going to change each others minds. I hope the discussion becomes irrelevant in the not to distant future  :)

Unfortunately I can’t see that happening  We live in a country with surprisingly sparse population densities, even within 50-100 miles of London.

For Fibre to universally go any further than the cabinet, seems to me we need to either persuade rural dwellers to abandon their homes and move to the cities, or to impose a USO on the providers.   Latter would be my preference, but politically unthinkable as the providers would then need to massively increase charges to everybody. Who, among the existing FTTP urban users, would vote for a party with that in their manifesto?
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johnson

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Who, among the existing FTTP urban users, would vote for a party with that in their manifesto?

Who would vote for using tax revenue to pay for infrastructure that makes every citizen more productive?

I think we are singing from different hymn books...  :lol:
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ejs

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If you call DSL with the box a bit closer to your house fibre you devalue the actual reality of a fibre connection and reduce consumer pressure to ask for a better network.

Is that really because it's being falsely marketed as fibre, or could that actually be largely due to an FTTC connection being good enough for a lot of people?
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sevenlayermuddle

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The other point to bear in mind is, 100% fibre with 0% copper is just not necessary, even for gigabit speeds.

I have no idea how a tower block, containing dozens of dwellings, would normally be provisioned with FTTP.  But I would imagine a possibility might be to have fibre to the building, with copper ethernet distribution therein.   There’s a company called Hyperoptic that, I think, does just that - not just to apartment blocks, but to office blocks too.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/07/hyperoptic-expansion-investment-1gbps/

So, would the “copper is evil” mantra extend to above?  Would Hyperoptic be told to stop referring to their product as “fibre”?     That would be a pity, as it’s a cost-effective way of getting extremely fast, and extremely stable broadband, to large numbers of people, in a realistic timescale.  And it is made possible because the main part of the route uses optical fibre, even though copper is used in part, as well. ???

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johnson

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Coax or CAT5/6 ethernet cables and UTP are different animals... are you really comparing telegraph pole technology from the turn of the century with fibre to a premises in an apartment building?
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fat jez

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Coax or CAT5/6 ethernet cables and UTP are different animals... are you really comparing telegraph pole technology from the turn of the century with fibre to a premises in an apartment building?

Absolutely agree.  Ethernet was designed to carry 10/100/1000/10000Mbps at reliable speeds.  You wouldn’t run an office network over fibre. You terminate the fibre at building entry and distribute the connection over cat 5/6.  Same with a block of flats.

The stuff we have to run broadband over now was originally intended for analogue voice only.  Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s amazing that I’m getting 290Mbps over my phone line, but I’d rather have fibre all the way.
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Ireland Doing What the UK ASA Failed to do – BAN “Fake Fibre” Ads
« Reply #14 on: August 01, 2019, 12:16:08 AM »

Coax or CAT5/6 ethernet cables and UTP are different animals...

Cat 5 and successors 5E, 6 etc, are normally unshielded, UTP.    Coax was used for ethernet in the early days, but (iirc) limited to 10Mbps.    UTP is now infinitely more common, providing gigabit and more.

I do find it interesting that, whilst I remember being taught the ‘seemingly miraculous’ qualities of UTP in my 1970s degree course, I wonder whether anybody then really foresaw its future deployment as DSL and high speed ethernet?  :)
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