Judicial review to be made into use of 'fibre' in broadband ads

The High Court has given CityFibre permission for a judicial review of the advertising regulator’s decision on the use of “fibre” in broadband advertising.

The Advertising Standards Authority recently decided to stick with existing rules that do not distinguish between full- and part-fibre services in broadband ads. The ASA tightened up its guidance but, after commissioning a consumer survey, decided use of the word “fibre” by part-fibre broadband services was unlikely to mislead the public.

In doing so the ASA failed to mark out the different levels of connectivity provided by full-fibre and part-fibre services on a copper network, CityFibre, a broadband network developer, said.

At the High Court hearing CityFibre argued the way the survey was conducted did not support the ASA’s judgment, the sample group was not representative and the findings went against the ASA’s opinion.

Greg Mesch, CityFibre’s chief executive, said: “The High Court is seeing sense where the ASA failed to: this is the right decision for consumers and our economy. CityFibre challenged the ASA’s decision because consumers must not be misled into thinking they can get full-fibre benefits on a copper broadband network - they can’t: copper is dead.”

The ASA commissioned its survey after the government said “fibre” should be applied to full-fibre services and MPs raised concerns about the term being used for part-fibre broadband. The government wants full UK coverage for full-fibre by 2033 to support economic growth.

The majority of broadband services delivered over BT Openreach or Virgin's infrastructure are reliant on all-copper or part-copper-part-fibre networks. However, BT's Openreach has stated that it plans to connect 3m homes and businesses to full fibre by 2020.

CityFibre is working with Vodafone to instal superfast full-fibre broadband in UK towns and cities. In April the AIM-listed company agreed to be taken private by a consortium backed by Goldman Sachs.