Broadband giants will welcome Ofcom’s new fibre rules
I’m pleased that Ofcom has stopped internet providers using ‘fibre’ to describe broadband connections that aren’t fully fibre – ie, all the way to home.
It’s good news for the public, but the broadband giants will be happy too because lots of customers who thought they were on fibre will find out that they’re actually on a slower connection – probably Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC).
Many of them will feel shortchanged, or even think (wrongly) that their speed has been cut. Some of these will want to reclaim the ‘fibre’ speeds they had, and the only way to do that will be to upgrade to a Fibre-to-the-Premises FTTP package.
I’m sure most Computeractive readers are savvy enough to know the difference, and won’t be confused. So it’s our duty to tell friends and relatives who are less technically aware that their service hasn’t changed, and that they shouldn’t feel like they need to upgrade just to keep their broadband defined as ‘fibre’.
Keith Arthurs