Ad description

A website for Hyperoptic, www.hyperoptic.com, an internet service provider, seen on 12 February 2016, stated “Most ‘fibre broadband’ services are not Fibre Broadband. They are fibre-and-copper: fibre optic cabling from the exchange to your street, then copper phone wires into your building … Hyperoptic specialises in bringing full fibre optic broadband direct to multi-dwelling buildings such as apartments and offices … Hyperoptic fibre broadband is true fibre broadband. It pipes the UK’s fastest residential speeds all the way to your building using fibre optic cabling direct from the exchange”.

Issue

The complainant, who understood that copper was used for part of the connection from their building into their apartment, challenged whether the claims were misleading and could be substantiated.

Response

Hyperoptic Ltd said their service provided a fibre connection from the telephone exchange to a customer’s building. The fibre portion terminated at distribution points within the building, and Cat5e cable then connected those distribution points to each individual customer’s flat or office. They said that the claim “full fibre optic broadband, direct to multi-dwelling buildings” made it clear that their service provided fibre to the building and not fibre all the way to a customer’s router. They said the paragraph further down the page, titled “The Hyperoptic difference”, and their “Feature and Benefits” page also made clear that fibre was not used for the entirety of a customer’s connection.

They explained that there was a difference between copper phone lines and the Cat5e cable, which was designed for data transfer, and was only used for a small proportion of the connection, and so did not impact the quality of the service provided.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted that Hyperoptic described their service as “full fibre” and compared it to other fibre broadband services which consisted of fibre to the cabinet and then copper phone lines from the cabinet into consumers’ homes. We noted that the service was specifically targeted at multi-dwelling buildings such as offices and flats, and there were several references to the fact that the Hyperoptic’s service consisted of fibre from the exchange up to consumer’s buildings such as “fibre optic direct to multi-dwelling buildings”, “fibre cabling directly to your building” and “… all the way to your building”. We therefore considered that consumers were likely to understand that Hyperoptic provided a complete fibre internet connection from the telephone exchange up to multi-dwelling buildings, and would not expect the entire connection up to a consumer’s router to be fibre.

We understood that ‘typical’ fibre connections consisted of fibre for a portion of the connection from the exchange to the cabinet, but that copper was then used from the cabinet to a customer’s building. In contrast, Hyperoptic provided a fibre connection from the exchange through to the consumer’s building to a distribution point and from those distribution points, Cat5e cable was used to connect offices or flats to the fibre service. We understood that the location of the distribution points varied according to the architecture of the building and a small amount of Cat5e cable was used to deliver the service from the distribution points to individual customers.

Because we considered consumers were likely to interpret the claims to mean that, in contrast with ‘typical’ fibre broadband services, Hyperoptic’s service consisted of fibre from the exchange to a customer’s building, and that was the case, we concluded that the ad was not misleading.

We investigated the ad under CAP Code (Edition 12) rules  3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.  and  3.3 3.3 Marketing communications must not mislead the consumer by omitting material information. They must not mislead by hiding material information or presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner.
Material information is information that the consumer needs to make informed decisions in relation to a product. Whether the omission or presentation of material information is likely to mislead the consumer depends on the context, the medium and, if the medium of the marketing communication is constrained by time or space, the measures that the marketer takes to make that information available to the consumer by other means.
 (Misleading advertising),  3.7 3.7 Before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove claims that consumers are likely to regard as objective and that are capable of objective substantiation. The ASA may regard claims as misleading in the absence of adequate substantiation.  (Substantiation) and  3.11 3.11 Marketing communications must not mislead consumers by exaggerating the capability or performance of a product.  (Exaggeration), but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

CAP Code (Edition 12)

3.1     3.11     3.3     3.7    


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