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NEWS IN BRIEF
Advertising Standards Authority
challenged over ‘fake fibre’ ruling
The Advertising Standards Authority
(ASA) is to be legally challenged by full
fibre builder CityFibre over its decision
to continue allowing broadband
products delivered over legacy copper-
based networks to be advertised as
‘fibre’, perpetuating a recognised
issue of the industry confusing and
misinforming consumers.
The majority of broadband services
in the UK are currently supplied over
all-copper or part-copper-part-fibre
networks. The presence of copper
in any part of the network results in
slower download speeds, even poorer
uploading and much less reliable
services than the new generation of
future-proof full fibre networks. Full fibre
services are capable of Gigabit speeds
(1000 Mbps) both downloading and
uploading, and are far more reliable.
As a result of the lax advertising
rules, the rapidly increasing number
of consumers with access to full fibre
risk being unable to make an informed
purchasing decision between these
radically different technologies. ISPs
could, for example, advertise services
over a copper-based network as ‘ultra-
fast fibre broadband’, misleading the
consumer into believing they were
purchasing the most advanced fibre
service available to them.
Under pressure from parliament,
industry and Government, which called
for terms like ‘fibre’ to be used only
when referring to ‘full fibre services’
in last year’s Digital Strategy, the ASA
reviewed the use of the term ‘fibre’
last year but ruled in November that no
change was required.
CityFibre has filed for a judicial
review of the ASA’s ruling on the basis
that the research and logic that lead to
the decision was fundamentally flawed.
Their conclusion that consumers are
not misled by the term ‘fibre’, directly
contradicted independent research
commissioned by industry players,
which found that while consumers are
often confused by broadband jargon,
they understood that end-to-end fibre
represented a step-change in the
quality of their broadband – in speed
reliability and consistency – and felt
misled when products delivered over
copper phone wires are advertised as
being 'fibre’. n
CENTIEL Ltd has appoointed
David Bond as new chairman
CENTIEL Ltd, the UK subsidiary of
Swiss-based UPS manufacturer
CENTIEL SA, has appointed David
Bond as its new Chairman. Bond
who has worked in the UPS industry
for more than 30 years and is
co-author of the UPS Handbook.
David will also join the board of the
parent company.
Prior to joining, David was
managing director of Benning
UK Ltd and has previously been
managing director for Emerson
Network Power, managing director
for Uninterruptible Power Supplies
Ltd (UPSL) and was also chief executive of Newave Energy.
David commented: “CENTIEL acquired MPower UPS at the end of last
year to help achieve its ambition of having strong subsidiaries in key global
markets. My role is now to guide the expansion of this experienced team
and to help develop the already thriving business model in a structured
way to continue to deliver service excellence whilst gaining UK market
share." n
Kao data appoint
new chairman to
guide data centre
campus expansion
Kao Data has appointed Craig Wilson
as Chairman to guide the expansion of
their data centre campus expansion. The
company is now entering the operational
phase of its newly announced Kao London
One wholesale colocation data centre. Craig
brings considerable industry and government
department experience to assist in its
expansion across key markets.
As technology continues its rapid evolution,
Craig’s role as Chairman is to help define and
guide the Kao Data customer experience,
providing guidance where necessary and
applying the gravity of his experience.
Commenting on his appointment, Craig
said: “Kao Data’s disruptive business model
provides best practice ideas and application
of technology within the data centre to offer
greater opportunities to the market. This is an
exciting time as the Kao Data Campus becomes
fully operational. The state-of-the-art facility
offers the high levels of security, capacity,
performance and energy efficiency that
customers are now looking for.” n
NGD builds upwards
Next Generation Data (NGD) will build an additional
250,000 sq ft of capacity at its mega data centre
campus near Cardiff, South Wales. This follows a
spate of new customer contracts worth in excess
of £125 Million over the next five years including
agreements with several Fortune 100 companies.
Construction work is already underway on NGD’s
top floor to accommodate the new private and
shared data halls. The scale and complexity of
the project requires more than 500 construction
workers to be permanently on site, creating further
substantial employment for locally based contractors
and contractor firms.
Since opening its multimillion pounds data centre
campus for business eight years ago NGD has already
notched up over 32MW of built space and remains
Europe’s largest data centre campus. In 2016 the
company secured multimillion pound funding from
Infravia Capital Partners to accelerate expansion.
The highly secure facility features a vast 180 MW
renewably sourced power capacity and multiple high-
speed low latency fibre network connections. NGD is
ideally suited to meeting demanding cloud and high-
performance computing requirements. .. n
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