National Advertising Review Board Recommends Comcast Discontinue Use of “10G” When Referring to the Name of its Network

New York, NY – January 31, 2024 – A panel of the National Advertising Review Board (NARB), the appellate advertising body of BBB National Programs, recommended that Comcast Cable Communications, LLC discontinue use of the term 10G in the product service name “Xfinity 10G Network” and when 10G is used descriptively to describe the Xfinity network. 

The advertising at issue had been challenged by Verizon Communications Inc. Following the National Advertising Division’s (NAD) decision (Case No. 7213), Comcast appealed NAD’s finding that 10G as used by the advertiser communicates express messages that are unsubstantiated.

In agreement with NAD, the NARB panel determined that Comcast should discontinue use of the term 10G, both when used in the name of the service itself (“Xfinity 10G Network”) as well as when used to describe the Xfinity network. The use of 10G in a manner that is not false or misleading and is consistent with the panel decision is not precluded by the panel recommendations.

The NARB panel concluded that 10G expressly communicates at a minimum that users of the Xfinity network will experience significantly faster speeds than are available on 5G networks. This express claim is not supported because the record does not contain any data comparing speeds experienced by Xfinity network users with speeds experienced by subscribers to 5G networks. 

Further, the NARB panel determined that, in the absence of actual Xfinity Gigabit Pro service tier market usage data showing consumer usage, the recent availability of 10G speeds through that service tier does not support the superior speed claim (or a 10Gbps claim) for the Xfinity network as a whole. 

Initially, Comcast stated that it was unable to comply with NARB’s recommendations because the issues on appeal were the subject of a separate NARB appeal that was pending following NAD’s decision in a similar (but not identical) advertising challenge brought by T-Mobile US, Inc. (Case No. 7212). That appeal (NARB Panel 325) was subsequently decided.

Thereafter, Comcast stated that “although it strongly disagrees with NARB’s analysis and approach,” Comcast will modify its advertising to comply with the panel recommendations as set forth in the decision in Panel 325. 

All BBB National Programs case decision summaries can be found in the case decision library. For the full text of NAD, NARB, and CARU decisions, subscribe to the online archive. Per NAD/NARB procedures, this release shall not be used for advertising or promotional purposes.