back to article ISP's ads 'misleadingly implied' existence of 6G, says watchdog

Despite "diagrams" and in-depth descriptions of exactly how its "full fibre directly to your home" fixed line product works, UK ISP 6G Internet is in hot water after an ads regulator ruled consumers may have thought it was "offering a non-existent future mobile technology." In its own defence, 6G Internet Limited insisted it's …

  1. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

    Their argument here seems to revolve around the expectation that where a company name refers to a thing, then the service delivered by the company is expected to utilise that thing.

    This feels like a shaky argument. For example I used to have a phone service provided by Mercury (for I am old) - this delivered communication via a telephone using a cable made of copper, and I never received any messages via the winged messenger of the gods or via a cable made of metal that's liquid at room temperature.

    1. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells

      But if you bought from a company called "ACME Full fibre (FTTP) internet provider", you'd be a tad miffed if you found out that they were selling basic DSL over POTS.

      6G's name is intentionally misleading. They sell a wireless service too. It's dishonest.

      1. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge
        Joke

        To be fair though, only a fool would buy anything from the ACME Corporation. Have you not seen how their products performed for loyal customer Mr Wyle E. Coyote? Unreliable at best, a dangerous liability at worst.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          I dunno man, I bought an ACME black hole and put it on my bin lid. Saved me a fortune in bin liners. Mind you the door I bought from them on sale is a bit of a pain in the ass...I put it on the bathroom and 3/10 times I shit myself before I go in because it sometimes opens into a railway tunnel.

      2. blackcat Silver badge

        It depends if you bought a full fibre service from them. The name of the company is less relevant than what is in the contract you sign.

        Should we all be getting upset with Three as they turn off their 3G service?

        1. Mishak Silver badge

          Turn it off you say?

          I'm still waiting for them to turn it on here...

      3. rg287 Silver badge

        But if you bought from a company called "ACME Full fibre (FTTP) internet provider", you'd be a tad miffed if you found out that they were selling basic DSL over POTS.

        Ah no, that's absolutely fine and dandy according to the ASA. They dismissed a complaint by FTTP providers against incumbents (advertising coax & VDSL as "Fibre") on the basis that customers know what they're getting and it was "not materially misleading" for ISPs to describe copper hybrid services as "fibre broadband". So there. CityFibre sued them over that and sought judicial review... and lost.

        And for what it's worth... I have one former colleague who insisted in 2014 that he had fibre. He still plugged the router into the phone socket, but insisted that it had been "upgraded from the exchange" without anyone drilling holes in his walls. Alchemists could have had quite the field day trying to tease out how copper had spontaneously transmuted into glass, but there we have it. The ASA have told us that people aren't confused.

        6G's name is intentionally misleading. They sell a wireless service too. It's dishonest.

        Is it also dishonest for Three to sell 4G and 5G services? What about voice-only plans with no data on them at all? They literally called themselves Three when 3G was launching. Is it dishonest for Virgin Media to sell services to people who aren't... okay, maybe we won't run down that train of thought.

        1. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells

          Fibre is an odd one ( well, the ASA's ruling on it is ), which is why I put "FTTP" in my fake company name.

          And no, if you are being sold a wireless service ( with no technology explicitly specified) from a company called "6G internet" then a reasonable non-expert would assume that 6G internet is out and this firm is selling it.

          1. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
            Facepalm

            but they are not selling wireless service...

            1. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells

              Yes they are.

              https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/9544-we-visited-one-of-the-6g-internet-streets-or-should-it-be-wifi-6-internet

          2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            "a reasonable non-expert would assume that 6G internet is out and this firm is selling it"

            I'm now imagining mobs of unreasonable non-experts roving the streets looking for 6G masts to burn down an alleging a deep-state conspiracy to hide them as the reason they can't find any.

            1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
              Big Brother

              It's started! They're hidden in wind turbines.

              <stealth mode>

              I know, because I am part of The Deep State. We expected 6G masts to stay secret for longer, but those damned rebels are everywhere. If you read this, expect a visit by the black helicopters.

              </stealth mode>

              Posting as AC because we take security seriously!

              EDIT: Oh shit!

          3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            "and that therefore mobile technology and home broadband could not be entirely separated."

            I think the above quote is the crux of the matter, and yes, it could also be applied to other companies too.

            Almost everyone these days not in the IT industry refers to their internet connection as "WiFI". Doesn't matter if it it's actually Wifi, a wired router in the house on DSL, fibre or co-ax, or their mobile phone. It's all just "WiFi" to them, even when most of the time, it's not.

            Whether the company called 6G could have foreseen this as becoming a problem eventually is another matter. Maybe they were just trolling when they came up with the name. 3G existed by the time they called themselves 6G, and 4G was just being launched so I'd think it was pretty obvious there would very likely be a 5G and eventually a 6G.

            It may just be one of those odd things that happen with language, although in this case not entirely unforseen, unlike say, Sellotape being generic use for sticky tape or Hoover for a vacuum cleaner.

      4. Peter2

        But if you bought from a company called "ACME Full fibre (FTTP) internet provider", you'd be a tad miffed if you found out that they were selling basic DSL over POTS.

        Actually, I wouldn't. I've done just that quite deliberately from well known top tier providers of leased lines for branch offices, the bosses house etc.

        I'd be a tad miffed if I actually fell for one of the providers who were trying to sell bandwidth in megabits instead of megabytes, but knowing the difference it just reinforced my view that salesdroids are there to con and cheat me, and i'm there to see through the BS they peddle and read the contract carefully before signing anything.

        Yes, they have a name which could be misleading and they should probably be hammered for misleading advertising any time they are doing it. However, i've lost count of the number of companies i've used that have a name which could be construed as being misleading; for instance Formula One Autocentres imply as strongly as possible that their services are as quick as the F1 variety. It takes them much longer than 8 seconds from arrival to change all of my cars tyres. ;)

        1. Mike 137 Silver badge

          why be miffed?

          "I'd be a tad miffed if I actually fell for one of the providers who were trying to sell bandwidth in megabits instead of megabytes"

          Bandwidth is sold in megabits for two reasons: [1] because megabits directly translates to electronic frequencies at layer 1; [2] because megabytes means 'my data' to the user but packets at layers 2 up are larger than their user payload and it all has to be transmitted.

          1. Peter2

            Re: why be miffed?

            Reason 3: Most people don't know that a byte is eight times the size of a bit.

            Anybody company advertising something that appears 8 times slower for the same price gets pushed out of business.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          The real BS at the moment appears to be that all the ISPs claim 'fastest WiFi'

          a) you can't all be the fastest, b) even if you were the fastest, it's still the bit of damp string connecting you to the network that slows everything to a crawl

          1. druck Silver badge

            There's no point in having gigabit fibre to the premises, if your devices are connected via WiFi and you use the ISP's crappy router which struggles to give you 100mb/s six foot from the router.

            Round here Toob are putting in FTTP and someone who hadn't had BT's FTTC disconnected yet did a test around the house. Obviously the speed when connected via Ethernet was far higher on Toob, but their WiFi was slower even in the same room as the router, and dropped off to next to nothing further away in the house. Where as slow old BT less-than-full-fibre was far quicker everywhere, due to spending a few pennies more on the in home hardware.

            Of course it's easily fixed by replacing the ISP's junk with a decent WiFi router (and a mesh network if necessary), but how many people know they need to do that?

      5. DS999 Silver badge

        They've had the name for 10 years

        That's when LTE was just arriving on the scene and 5G was a distant dream. There was nothing called 6G.

        If they were called 5G and sold 5G services some idiot might still try to sue claiming their network didn't support speeds of 5 gigabits.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: They've had the name for 10 years

          From El Reg, Tony Smith, Thu 12 Feb 2004

          Vodafone to launch 3G mobile data service next week

          And Bill Ray, Mon 8 Oct 2012

          UK's first 4G network just switched on - and it's not from EE

          Anyone in the industry would be aware of 2G, 3G and 4G and the likely progression when they named themselves 6G. Not saying they were wrong, but it should have been obvious it would lead to eventual confusion.

    2. abend0c4 Silver badge

      Not just the name

      The <title> tag of their website says: 6G Internet - Next Generation High Speed Internet. So, of course, that's what show's up prominently in a Google search.

      And I wouldn't one of those poles outside my house or even in my street. If that's permitted development, it shouldn't be.

    3. rg287 Silver badge

      Their argument here seems to revolve around the expectation that where a company name refers to a thing, then the service delivered by the company is expected to utilise that thing.

      Quite. And remarkably enough, the provider 3, who - back in the day - launched to much fanfare as the UK's (self-claimed) leading provider of 3G have moved on to 4G and 5G.

      But we have to remember that this is the same ASA who dismissed a complaint by FTTP providers against incumbents (advertising coax & VDSL as "Fibre") on the basis that customers know what they're getting and it was "not materially misleading" for ISPs to describe copper hybrid services as "fibre broadband".

      Apparently customers know the difference between fibre and er... "fibre", but not fibre and cellular.

  2. Catkin Silver badge

    While we're at it

    Can ISPs stop touting that they offer the "best WiFi"? Their provided routers are invariably about as reliable as an aliexpress special and are embarrassed by a reputable router that costs about as much as a month of Internet.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: While we're at it

      ...and the perceived notion of ISP lock in with said WIFI.

      Several of my users at a couple of clients think they can't move away from BT because they will take the WIFI mesh kit back.

  3. Stuart Castle Silver badge

    6G is an odd name to have if you aren't selling mobile internet, or aren't being misleading.

    Sure, there could be a legitimate reason for the name (the 6 founders could each have a name beginning with G for instance), but this smacks of trying to cash in on the naming scheme used for Mobile networks. Even in 2012, when 5G wasn't a thing yet, and 4G had only just started, it was reasonable to assume there would be a 6g, and a 7g and so on..

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Trollface

      Let them be misleading

      Let them try to rake in customers thinking that they're getting 6G wifi. It's public knowledge that 6G doesn't exist yet, so the customers will become irate and demand refunds and it will be a terrible mess for that company.

      They might make money out of it, but they'll sweat every cent they make.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Let them be misleading

        Nah, leave it...in 5 years time their service will look old fashioned when everyone else is on 7G.

        1. Paul Herber Silver badge

          Re: Let them be misleading

          I've just tapped into a special service called 11G.

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: Let them be misleading

            Did you have to dial it up to connect?

      2. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: Let them be misleading

        "It's public knowledge that 6G doesn't exist yet"

        I don't think Joe Public knows that. Nor am I confident that Joe Public is clear on the difference between their xDSL to the property and the "fastest" WiFi that is used for the final hop to their shiny. Furthermore, I think that's why 6G chose that company name.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    6G?

    Hah, 6G? We've barely got 4G here (one network only and a weak signal at that), and I doubt we'll ever get 5G.

    1. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: 6G?

      I already have 6E, are you living in a backwater?

      1. Mike007 Silver badge

        Re: 6G?

        My 6e wireless only has 5e backhaul

  5. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Regulator

    Regulator focusing on SMEs and big corporations do whatever they want.

  6. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    What if I call my company WeaselInternet? Is it misleading because at some point in the future somebody may invent a technology to deliver internet services via weasels?

    1. Paul Herber Silver badge

      It's spelled weasel but pronounced wisel.

      1. Chloe Cresswell Silver badge

        I'm sure he won't last long around the Department of Administrative Affairs.

    2. Paul Herber Silver badge

      In theory packet delivery could use any of the Mustelidae.

      1. that one in the corner Silver badge

        But can we be assured of a supply of albinos needed for packet data whitening?

        1. that one in the corner Silver badge

          Of course, if I had badgered myself enough I'd've ferreted out the answer to that already; my only excuse is that I'm behind on the current stoat of the art.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            You've ermined that quite enough.

  7. jpennycook
    FAIL

    donations

    From the Manchester Evening News article, writing about a Council motion:-

    'It said: “When a group of residents recently met Chris Green MP about the problems, he claimed to have no knowledge of the company until they pointed out to him that he had recently received a political donation of £5,000 from IX Wireless.

    '“He has failed to answer any questions as to what his relationship is with the company or why he received and accepted the donation. It is noted that similar donations have been made to a number of other Conservative MPs in the North West of England.”'

    Those poles do look ugly - I wonder why they can't at least disguise them as trees.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: donations

      And again, Brexit didn't deliver on its promise of getting rid of Poles...

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: donations

        Hey! Our stores is run by a Pole. Best we've ever had. Stock checks always smooth, parts sent out on time. Brilliant :-)

  8. Mint Sauce
    Boffin

    AOL

    Biz says folks know the difference between fixed and mobile broadband. Do they, though, asks ASA?

    I think anyone event slightly technically minded is well aware that most people have NO idea about their internet connection. As far as they are concerned 'WiFi' is the magic thing that allows them to see pr0n and memes, regardless of how they're actually connected.

    1. 43300 Silver badge

      Re: AOL

      And it's not helped by confusing terminology like this from mobile ISPs: https://ee.co.uk/help/broadband/mobile-broadband/4gee-wifi

  9. Androgynous Cow Herd

    Meanwhile, in the states...

    Comcast is advertising "10G" plans - which obviously would be easily twice as good as 5G...

    In reality, connection stability from them is on par with an epileptic ice skater in a discotheque.

  10. Claverhouse
    WTF?

    Geez

    Having the name for 10 years, and maybe 18 years before 6G comes to pass: that's what I call long-term fraud.

  11. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    10G network

    Oh I've got that beat... Mediacom cable (I mean "Xtreme" internet..) has been advertising their "10G" network for about a year. Knowing that there's no 10G wireless or wired spec, I thought maybe the marketers made a mistake meant 10gbps network. Nope, their highest plan is 1gbps.

    What the hell is a 10G network you may ask? Total vaporware. CableLabs decided to use the term "10G" to refer to their plans to eventually, at some point in the future, provide some speed approaching 10gbps through future DOCSIS (cable modem standard) versions, future hardware for the cable headend to provide that much speed to begin with, and future hardware to cram into the cable modem so the customer can actually get that much speed. None of which exists now.

    Mediacom of course doesn't mention any of this in the ads, but on their website they reveal "10G" is their plan to, over several years, put in more cable nodes (less users on each piece of cable); roll out DOCSIS 4.0 (once hardware to do that with actually exists, which it doesn't now); and do a "split" where they use a wider band of frequencies for uploads so they can have higher upload speeds. I must admit, this is a fair enough plan for them to do. Just don't like how it's being advertised.

    There's no equivalent to the ASA here in the US! Can you imagine a company in UK saying "check out our 6G network!!!" Then a section on the company's web site noting network is actually 4G and 5G, it'll be 6G at some point in the future once 6G specs come out and they roll them out.

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