TWC, Cox Should Pull 'Fiber Optic' Claims: Ad Group
Better Business Bureau's Ad Division Acts on Verizon Complaints
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 5/4/2010 10:30:36 PM
Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications should stop describing their hybrid fiber-coax networks as "fiber optic networks" in their marketing, the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus said Tuesday in response to challenges by Verizon Communications.
TWC "respectfully, but vehemently, disagrees with NAD's decision," the cable operator said in a statement, and is appealing the decision to the National Advertising Review Board. Cox, meanwhile, said it would take the NAD recommendations into consideration for future advertising.
Verizon had previously issued complaints against Comcast and Cablevision Systems over the use of "fiber optic network" in their advertising, and the NAD similarly recommended those MSOs discontinue the claims.
Comcast declined to cooperate with the NAD's inquiry in the case, which was referred to the Federal Trade Commission, while Cablevision said it would take the NAD's findings into consideration in future advertising.
The NAD, in its rulings regarding Cox and Time Warner Cable, said that "at least one reasonable interpretation" of the "fiber optic network" claims is that the cable operators offer services over a network that "solely consists of fiber optics and is the functional and/or technical equivalent of a telecommunications network where fiber does extend to the home, a claim which the evidence in the record did not support."
Verizon, which has invested some $23 billion in the FiOS fiber-to the-home network that passes more than 15 million homes in the U.S., applauded the NAD decisions.
"This ruling is great news for consumers, who've been misled for too long by Cox and Time Warner [Cable]'s false and deliberately misleading ads," Verizon spokesman Jim Smith said. "It's finally time for both Cox and Time Warner [Cable] to stop claiming that their hybrid network is the same as Verizon's advanced, all-fiber network. It is not."
Among the claims at issue were that Time Warner Cable's "fiber-optic network delivers speeds up to 15 Megs for a dramatically faster online experience" and "Road Runner Turbo is zooming across the advanced fiber network." Cox's claims included that its digital cable is "delivered through our advanced Fiber Optic Network" and that Cox is "the New Face of Fiber."
Time Warner Cable did not agree that its fiber optic claims were out of bounds.
"Despite the undisputed fact that TWC's network is more than 90% fiber optic, NAD's decision seeks to stop TWC from making the true statement that it has a fiber optic network," the company said. "NAD's decision is unlimited and would go far beyond FiOS markets where there is no basis for a consumer to believe that TWC is offering a fiber to the home product. TWC would be prevented from referring to the benefits of its fiber optic network in markets in which its competitors, including Verizon, only offer DSL carried on copper wire all the way from its central offices. On these grounds and others which space limitations prevent us from including, TWC requests an appeal."
Regarding TWC's claim that 90% of its network is fiber optic, NAD said that depending on the context, "it may be misleading for an advertiser to describe its product/service by only calling out its predominant characteristic."
In addition, NAD noted, digital subscriber line (DSL) networks use fiber optics to a neighborhood node and then use twisted-pair copper wires from the node to the home -- however, the industry doesn't refer to DSL networks as "fiber optic networks."
For its part Cox said in a statement that it disagreed the NAD's "unsupported conclusion that consumers are likely to interpret Cox's statement that it delivers its services over an 'advanced fiber optic network' to mean that Cox offers its services over a network which solely consists of fiber optics."
The MSO continued, "Although Cox firmly believes that it provided a reasonable basis for describing its network as an 'advanced fiber optic network,' in the interest of supporting the self-regulatory process, Cox will take the NAD's recommendations into consideration in future advertising."
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Here is the text of a response to the BBB/NAD From The FOA:
The Fiber Optic Association Inc. - The Professional Society of Fiber Optics
1119 S Mission Road #355, Fallbrook, CA 92028
Phone: 1-760-451-3655 Fax 1-781-207-2421 Cell: 760-703-9565
www.thefoa.org
email jim@thefoa.org
May 26, 2009
The Director, National Advertising Division
Council of Better Business Bureaus
70 W 36th St., 13th Fl.
New York, NY 10018
Re: NAD Recommendations of CATV Companies Use of Term “Fiber Optic Network”
We have read the NAD news releases regarding your arbitration of the disagreement between Verizon and the cable companies Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications on advertising and would like to comment on your decision.
We are the Fiber Optic Association, Inc., the non-profit professional society of fiber optics. We are chartered to promote fiber optics through education, certification and standards. Since our founding in 1995, the FOA has certified 30,000 technicians through more than 200 educational organizations worldwide, and many of these technicians are the technicians who are installing the fiber optic networks for companies such as these.
While your technical descriptions were generally correct, they left much unsaid, and that is the topic we wish to address.
Basically every communications network today is based on fiber optics. The telephone network backbone is mostly fiber optics, as are most metropolitan networks, but of the approximately 150 million phone subscribers in the US only about 5 million are connected directly with fiber to the home or FTTH.
About 60 million US homes have CATV service and over half of those CATV subscribers have broadband internet access over their HFC (hybrid fiber coax networks.)
Of course, the Internet is a fiber optic backbone, but delivery to the home can be on dial-up connections over phone lines (about 20% of all users), wireless over cellular phones and about equal numbers of users of DSL (digital subscriber line) over phone lines and CATV cable modems.
You may not be aware that the backbone for wireless phones is mostly fiber optics also, as there is insufficient broadcast spectrum to support a totally wireless network. Virtually every cell phone tower is connected to the phone network over fiber.
In February of 1997, a technican installed a cable modem in my home and I instantly had an Internet connection more than 20 times faster than I could get on my 60 year old phone line in a suburb of Boston. It took another decade, while CATV companies were bringing broadband to the masses with their HFC networks that phone companies equaled their numbers of subscribers with DSL connections and Verizon, virtually alone of the old Bell operating companies, began offering FTTH.
CATV companies had a big advantage on broadband even back in the mid-90s, as their coax network was already capable of carrying high speed communications into the home. Today, the CATV companies are developing the technology and doing field trials of their own FTTH network, called RFOG (radio frequency over glass) to be prepared for when or if they need it.
And you should know that many of Verizon’s FiOS customers who have an ONT (optical network terminal) on the wall of their house connect their computers inside the house to the same coax cable formerly used for CATV or satellite TV. They are using a new connection system with technology similar to a cable modem called MOCA (multimedia over coax alliance), making a diagram of their broadband connection look a lot like a HFC network.
Thus we feel your viewpoint on advertising a “fiber optic network” is misguided. Certainly Verizon deserves praise for their massive effort in bringing FiOS FTTH to so many subscribers – we hope they continue expanding FiOS so they can offer it to all their network and other phone companies follow their lead. However, we think the CATV companies deserve equal credit for their pioneering efforts to bring broadband to the American public over their technically sophisticated HFC networks and equally deserve to describe them appropriately as “fiber optic networks.”
Sincerely yours,
Jim Hayes
President
Jim Hayes - 5/26/2010 8:48:48 PM EDT -
FIOS IS A HYBRID FIBER NETWORK ,,,,
FIOSGUY - 5/5/2010 9:05:19 AM EDT
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