European fibre lobby calls for end to fake fibre broadband ads

Re: Duck! Pigs.

A very selective industry body. If you look at the membership, it is unsurprisingly made up mainly of hardware suppliers. There's a tiny handful of small operators, and no consumer advocates.

Re: Duck! Pigs.

Just because it fits their interests - evidently if you sell fibre cables and devices, install them, or sell the service, you are damaged by the other technologies....

Re: Meat

or another journalist

Re: Meat

What's the problem? They're nuggets which contain a large proportion of vegetables. Since 'nugget' (in this sense) by default describes a meat product you should expect meat unless the name includes words like 'vegetarian' or 'non-meat'. I'm not a vegetarian but my sister is a vegan and I can assure you she checks things like this.

Re: Meat

41% vegetable, 41% poultry

And 18% coal, limestone or somesuch?

Re: Italy already did it

"Just, with UK exiting EU, why UK telcos are submitting the issue to EU??"

Because the UK is still in the EU :)

And rather a lot of industry bodies want to stay involved to avoid the need for new British regs and duplication of work. BSI for example:

http://www.constructionmanagermagazine.com/news/bsi-will-stay-european-standards-groups/

Unfortunately, this does lead to more bureaucracy, not less :(

Interesting quote from the Construction Manager article:

"Over the past 30 years, the identical adoption of European Standards by all members of CEN and CENELEC and the withdrawal of conflicting national standards has reduced the number of national standards across Europe from an estimated 160,000 to around 20,000 European Standards today."

Re: Italy already did it

Yellow/RF - FTTC fibre + copper (the latter in Italian "Rame", hence the R), or fibre + radio (including broadband ones like FWA, 4/5G, etc.)

I think this doesn't quite go far enough; I suggest there also needs to be a distinction between FTTC and FTTM services (ie. fixed and mobile 'fibre' services), something will become more important when the 5G bandwagon really gets rolling and the advertisers will be making the most of the headline speed figures.

Where to draw the line?

It is just fibre up to some nearby cabinet and copper inside.

Isn't that also true if it's fibre to your modem and GB ethernet from there to the PC? Or even when it's fibre to the PC and copper across the motherboard? It's never 100% fibre.

At the end of the day, all the end user cares about is that they get the performance they were promised. That, not the medium used, is what should be in the ads.

Re: It's a start

You might want to take a peek at this news-site, which will keep you up to speed:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/18/broadband_speed_advertising_changes/

Re: The ASA are shills, not consumer protection folk

I would guess then "pure fibre" means it is to the latest specification, with less inpurities and dispersion, than say, 20 or 30 year old fibre, which would be "impure fibre".

As an earlier commentard suggested, all internet connections are fibre then, 'cos that's what connects all the local exchanges back to telehouse and the like......

I also had an interesting conversation with a virgin media sales bod about fibre - asking how it would be terminated into my house and what access they needed. When I pointed out the the router/modem they supplied had a coax cable connector on the back and not a fibre interface in sight it just went over their head. "It's fibre broadband" they kept telling me. No, It's docsis coax copper broadband I kept telling them to no avail.

Re: The ASA are shills, not consumer protection folk

What do you expect from a TRADE ASSOCIATION that was formed to stave off government regulation?

The only reason they exist is to pretend that all is well and the government don't need to pass real regulations or setup a proper regulatory body. Complaints should also go to your local trading standards office.

Re: Hardly the first time

Sadly, there seems to be a lot of complicit lying and duping of the public at the moment, particularly from a technology point of view. By marketing hype, vested interests and politicians.

Just a few examples, I'm sure the list could be a lot longer.....

Smart Meters - Not any more likely to save money than dumb meter. In fact, the cost of the meter will hardly pay for itself within its lifetime. Being rolled out primarily so that time-of-day billing can be introduced, thus moving peak consumption around and reducing the need for industry to invest in new power stations.

Gas/Electricity tariffs - as complicated and confusing as possible to make comparisons difficult.

Broadband - fibre/no-fibre, upto, unrestricted - well debated here on El Reg.

Zero Pollution Electric Vehicles - no such things as zero pollution, unanswered questions about battery life and replacement cost, recycling, toxic chemicals, rare earth minerals, etc.

Smart Cars - Hardly a utopian dream - plenty of obsfuscation of real issues, etc. Again, often well debated here on El Reg.

DAB radio - again often debated here on El Reg, Again, not all that it has been promised to be. Increased energy consumption, recycling of old equipment....

Re: It's the speed, not the method

"Just require all vendors to deliver the quoted speed over a minimum distance. "

Uh yeah. No problem. And the contention ratio back to the exchange?

Or the contention ration ratio from the exchange back to the ISP?

Re: Meat?

Sir, I believe you have curry for 10p. Where, perchance, may I sign up to this deal?

Re: Cogito ergo sum?

I'm pretty sure (read: absolutely totally sure, 'cos I watched them run the fibre down the corridor). But then, I'm in Canada, and in a condo tower that has a provider with fibre to the apartment as an option (as well as other providers serving the tower who offer cable and other technologies). I would suggest a qualification, whether geographic or otherwise, to the hook line might be in order :-). I'll try to be nice and not mention my symetric, uncapped service - or the cost. Or, um, rather the 'lack' of significant cost :-))). Oh, alright. 250Mbps for $50 a month. I could have 1Gbps if I felt like shelling a whole $100 a month...

Re: Copper

"he line going from the cab to your house is aluminium"

There's a lot of re-stringing of the overhead network going on in my neck of the woods over the last few weeks. I haven't asked what it's about but I wonder if they're replacing AL with Cu.

Inadequate compensation for having to live there, IMHO.