Advertisment
The advertisement was heard on national radio and stated:
“Naughty, naughty SIRO have a confession – there’s nothing actually wrong with copper wire broadband. But then, there’s nothing wrong with fax machines either…or DVDs…or even typewriters! They work; they just don’t work the way modern life demands…
SIRO have only ever delivered fibre first broadband, so if you want the fastest, most reliable, futureproofed fibre broadband, then get it through SIRO’s retail partners: Digiweb, Pure, Sky, Vodafone, and others, at SIRO.ie. SIRO, do life different.
Subject to availability and location.”
Complaint
Complaint: A complaint was received from eir against the advertisement. They considered the advertisement to be in contravention of both the Marketing and Comparative Marketing Communications Regulation 2007 and the ASA Code on the basis that it was both misleading and made unsubstantiated claims.
More specifically, they said the advertisement did not contain any substantiation for the claim that SIRO’s broadband product was the “fastest” and “most reliable” broadband. The complainants wished to highlight that eir, rather than SIRO, was the sole provider who could substantiate the claim of providing “Ireland’s most reliable broadband speeds”, as verified independently by Ookla , a global authority in broadband network intelligence.
The complainants highlighted that in accordance with eir’s obligations under the Code, they had ensured that all substantiation details were made available and invited consumers to see the “Network Claims & Recognition” documentation published in the “Terms and conditions” section on eir.ie/reliable.
The complainants claimed that an argument based on technical considerations is flawed and that the ‘real issue’ is that of performance and availability of high-speed fibre broadband to consumers. The complainants supplied Ookla data for Q1-Q2 2025 in support of their argument that they provided faster and more reliable broadband than the advertisers retail partners could have provided. The claimed that while the advertisers may use an inherently faster product in FTTH compared with FTTC, this did not necessarily mean that the advertiser’s retail partners could have offered the fastest or most reliable broadband speeds.
The complainants pointed to Ookla’s H1 2025 Speedtest Intelligence data in four major Irish population centres to illustrate their claim that they had superior broadband speeds to the advertiser’s retail partners.
They also relied on this data in the claim that the advertisers had also not demonstrated their claim that they provided the ‘most reliable’ broadband and had made implied and improper comparative advertising claims.
The complaints said, further, that their network was larger and more advanced than that of the advertisers and that they had a significantly larger XGS-PON footprint.
The complainants said that the advertisers they had not demonstrated their superiority claims as they had not adduced the suitable comparative market data to show that they are factual. This is despite other broadband providers rolling out fibre broadband networks of similar capabilities.
The complainants said that the advertisers having characterized GPON as inferior to XGS-PON was incorrect as GPON could deliver 1 Gbps and that the majority of the advertiser’s customers would have been subscribed to plans of this speed. Therefore, there was no speed advantage in reals terms to customers.
The complainants however did not believe that this was of relevance as they claimed that their XGX-PON footprint was larger than the advertisers and growing at a faster rate. The complainants said that an argument from technological superiority was not of relevance as what was actually at issue was the real-world experience of customers and speed test data.
The complainant provided an Ookla document on request which contained a table entitled “Ireland – Consistency Score – Q3-Q4 2024 – Top Providers”. They also provide the same information for Q1-Q2 2025.
Response
Response: In relation to the “fastest” broadband claim, the advertisers said that they provided a 100% fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network with speeds up to 2Gbps, delivered directly to customers’ homes through their retail partners. They said that this FTTH technology was distinct from fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) systems offered by competitors, like eir, which they said relied on older copper infrastructure.
The advertisers said it was a well-documented and industry-accepted fact that FTTH delivered inherently faster speeds and better performance compared to FTTC. They said that SIRO’s FTTH product was currently providing the fastest speeds available to Irish retailers to provide to end-users, and that there were no faster products available on the Irish market.
The advertisers said that eir themselves made a similar claim regarding their FTTH product, detailing that fibre optic technology delivered Ireland’s fastest broadband speeds, and that eir themselves acknowledged that their FTTC product, “eir Fibre”, could only deliver speeds of up to 100Mbps.
In relation to the “most reliable” broadband claim, the advertisers said their FTTH network was based on scalable opto-electronic technology, using XGS-PON, ensuring robust and uninterrupted service. They said that this futureproofing capability ensured that the network could adapt to increasing consumer demands, providing stability unmatched by copper-based systems, which could suffer from signal/noise deterioration due to distance attenuation not associated with FTTH.
The advertisers said that fibre-optic cables used in FTTH connections were moreover not susceptible to electromagnetic interference, which meant it offered a more reliable connection. Again, they highlighted that these were the same “most reliable” claims that eir itself makes, about fibre optic technology at:
https://www.eir.ie/business/smb/gigabit-fibre/
The advertisers explained that the advertisement was designed to inform consumers about the benefits of FTTH technology, specifically its speed, reliability, and scalability. They said that the language used was consistent with industry standards and accurately reflected the performance of SIRO’s network. The advertisers said it did not mislead consumers but rather encouraged them to make informed decisions about their broadband provider.
The advertisers said that the Irish FTTH wholesale market was comprised of many operators including Virgin, SIRO, BTE NET, NBI as well as eir and clarified that their communications were not addressed against any specific operator and indeed reflected well on all FTTH operators.
The advertisers provided documentation which substantiated and represented the superior attributes of FTTH networks over FTTC.
The advertisers contended that eir used a variety of FTTH standards including GPON which they said was a legacy and slow FTTH technology. In contrast, they said that 100% of Siro homes passed, were passed by an XGS-PON based FTTH technology, which they said was inherently faster than eir’s. They said that because their footprint was one technology (XGS-PON), every premises enjoyed the XGS-PON optical budget. On eir’s, they said that identical houses in different towns could face a difference in upload capacity simply because one splitter was still GPON. It was their position that, at the time of their response and at the time of the advertisement, they had the fastest network between the two operators.
The advertisers also wished to point out that the complainant’s claim of having the largest XGS-PON network was immaterial and if anything concedes the point that they used a mixed technology network.
They said that eir, through its wholesale arm Open eir, explicitly named GPON as the legacy technology behind large parts of its fibre to the premises network. They said that these references left little doubt that eir itself, through regulatory filings, technical handbooks and regulator summarised evidence, publicly acknowledged the continued use of first-generation GPON across much of its fibre estate which contrasted with the advertisers uniformly XGS-PON footprint and underpinned any comparison between the two operators’ technologies.
The advertisers said that the advertisement had made no direct comparison to a specific competitor, nor did it disparage any particular provider. They said that they had used light-hearted analogies to demonstrate the technical progression from copper to fibre, akin to the evolution from DVD’s to streaming. They considered that their statements were objectively verifiable and substantiated through robust technical data and market context. They did not consider that they were making a comparative claim, given that they had focussed on technology and not on their competitors; had referenced copper wire generally, and had not used third-party metrics to assert superiority, rather it had made a product-centric claim regarding performance attributes commonly associated with FTTH technologies deployed by either company.
The advertisers said that the proper benchmark for their claims was technology and not a ‘handful of city-specific median download figures’ from Ookla. They said that results from speed-test providers used different methodologies and as such should not be used for market-wide superiority claims. They also said that the complainants were not the fastest nor most reliable broadband as per Ookla’s own results when the results were looked at in their totality. They claimed that the results used by the complainants were selective and geographically specific.
The advertisers said that customers were availing of plans that deliver 5Gbps and 10Gbps services using their fully XGS PON FTTP network. As evidence of this they referred to a company providing 10Gbps broadband and a recent case study they conducted regarding a 5Gbps connection provided to a business. They also said that these higher speeds were delivered ‘below the line’, meaning that they were generally not advertised and only made available to consumers on request. They referred to a 5Gbps connection recently installed in a domestic setting so the customer could avail of ‘low-latency’ gaming.
Conclusion
The Independent Complaints Council considered the detail of the complaint and the advertisers’ response.
The Council considered that the advertisement was a comparative advertisement against the broadband Fibre to the Home Market, as it stated “SIRO have only ever delivered fibre first broadband, so if you want the fastest, most reliable, futureproofed fibre broadband, then get it through SIRO’s retail partners: Digiweb, Pure, Sky, Vodafone, and others, at SIRO.ie. SIRO, do life different.” They also considered that the claim implied that by going to one of the retail partners would result in a customer receiving “the fastest, most reliable, futureproofed fibre broadband.”
The Council noted the Code requirement that a claim that any product is superior to others should only be made where there is clear evidence to support the claim. Wording which implies superior or superlative status – such as, “number one”, “leading”, “largest”, or “similar” – should be capable of substantiation with market share data or similar proof.
The Council considered that it was accepted by the parties that XGS-PON was a superior technology to GPON. They noted that the SIRO network solely utilised XGS-PON technology and that eir utilised a mix of technologies, including XGS-PON. The Council further noted that the advertisers had promoted their product by inviting customers to ‘get it through’ their retail partners, who were themselves customers of both SIRO and other broadband network providers.
As the advertisers’ network did not pass all premises, customers who availed of broadband products via their retail partners would potentially receive their broadband service via an alternative technology to XGS-PON. Where customers of the advertisers’ retail partners were served via the XGS-PON technology and where the complainants’ customers were also served via the XGS-PON technology, the Council understood both sets of customers would receive equally fast, reliable broadband. On that basis, the Council did not consider that the advertising claim that customers would get the “fastest, most reliable, futureproofed fibre broadband” had been substantiated. They therefore considered that it was in breach of 4.1, 4.4, 4.9 and 4.10 of the Code.
Action Required
The advertising must not reappear again in its current form in the absence of substantiation for its superlative claims.
