Last year, Virgin Media launched a high profile media campaign in the UK that you and I would consider slightly disingenuous to say the least. This was the text used in some of the adverts:
"... it's not just any old broadband, it's unlimited super duper fast fibre-optic cable broadband. Or in other words, broadband that doesn't use copper wire like most providers and doesn't slow down no matter how far you live from the telephone exchange"
Several DSL competitors and a number of citizens complained to the UK Advertising Standards Authority that the adverts were misleading because they suggested that fiber came all the way to the home, which it doesn't. Virgin Media defended its wording, saying that they did use fiber to the street cabinet, that the coax they used from the cabinet to the homes was not copper and that the signal depreciation with distance was indeed better than with regular DSL copper. Apparently, the ASA went for it and earlier this week ruled in Virgin Media's favour.
At face value, it's not that big an issue. It does however introduce a lot of potential confusion in customers' minds as to what is what and which are the benefits. As usual, the terrible weakness of telecom companies is that they mostly only know how to sell technology and that customers mostly don't want to buy technology. At the end of the day, competing technologies form a huge mess in people's minds, which benefits no one (you should have heard this morning's taxi driver rant about 3G!)
So is FTTC+Coax the same as FTTH ? In terms of technology and capability, it's not. But that's only true as seen from the consumer's standpoint if the service is signifcantly better or different. And since Virgin Media is aiming at differenciation from DSL, so far, it's hard to prove them wrong. They indeed have superior capabilities. Which doesn't mean much really, since technical capability is only one (often small) part of the equation and contention ratios, processes, customer service, and first and foremost enabled capability is what the customer perceives.
Noos in France has been playing a similar game arguing that FTTH and FTTB+Coax are one and the same. Slightly less disingeneous, and harder to counter by anyone else. Their fiber adverts haven't been contested, as far as I know.
On the upside, if calling a service fiber sells, that's got to be a good sign...
