23 January 2019

KCOM MD Sean Royce says portraying FTTC as full fibre is “frankly wrong.”

KCOM has backed calls by the Fibre To The Home Council Europe to stop internet providers making misleading fibre broadband claims.

Sean Royce, MD of the Hull-based comms firm, says some ISPs are being allowed to misrepresent their broadband as ‘full fibre’ despite their services using old copper wiring. He believes comparing FTTH broadband to FTTC is like comparing a “jet plane with a horse and cart”.

“We strongly back the FTTH Council Europe’s demands to clamp down on misleading advertising which portrays FTTC broadband as full fibre. It must be very confusing for customers who think they’re getting a full fibre service when, in reality, their broadband is limping the last leg of its journey to the home on old copper wiring. To be able to advertise this as fibre is frankly wrong.”

Earlier in December, telecoms ministers gathered in Brussels to adopt the new European Electronic Communications Code, and they also considered what can and cannot be labelled as fibre. FTTH Council Europe president Ronan Kelly published an open letter urging them to stop “misleading” fibre advertising by UK and EU broadband ISPs.

Citing a survey conducted by CityFibre in the UK in July, the letter says 24 per cent of respondents think they already have fibre cables running all the way to their home, despite this only being currently available to three per cent of UK properties. It states: “A consumer thinking they already have full fibre will never switch to a FTTH connection. Misusing the word fibre in advertisements prevents consumers from making an informed choice about the products which are available to them and risks hindering fibre take-up.

“There is growing evidence that consumers are largely unaware of the form of internet connectivity they have bought, often times due to the associated advertising.”

The council says that where consumers know what they can choose from and understand the difference in performance between fibre and copper-based connections, they “consciously” choose fibre.

Royce says that when other providers are able to promote their “inferior, half-copper” services as fibre broadband it undermines the value of what investors in FTTH are achieving and the quality of the product.

He warns that this may put off other ISPs investing in the much needed technology. “This can only be bad for the UK’s businesses which could be left trailing in the slow lane behind other advanced economies and it could damage our reputation as a leading tech nation.”

According to Royce, KCOM has invested heavily in rolling out true full fibre broadband which is now providing customers with Gigabit speeds. The firm is currently on the final leg of its £85m programme of implementing full fibre broadband across its Hull and East Yorkshire network, and expects to reach 100 per cent of its network – some 200,000 premises – by March 2019.

According to KCOM, just five per cent of premises nationally have access to full fibre broadband at present.