By Denis Carmel
VANCOUVER – In a civil suit filed on June 10, Telus has asked the British Columbia Supreme Court to grant an injunction preventing Shaw, from using the term “Fibre+” as the product name for its fastest Internet service.
“The false and misleading statements in Shaw’s advertising and promotional materials described above, which Shaw knew and knows are false, were made with the intent to cause consumer confusion and injury to Telus without lawful justification, and will result in Telus suffering actual economic loss,” writes Telus in its statement of claim.
Telus argues that using the word “Fibre”, Shaw misrepresents the nature of its service that, “Unlike Telus’ FTTH (fibre to the home) Internet service, Shaw’s competing DOCSIS-based Internet service does not use high-performance fibre-optic cable to connect customers’ homes directly to its network. Rather, Shaw’s DOCSIS service uses lower-performance coaxial cable to connect customers’ homes to the nodes, which nodes are located somewhere in the customers’ neighbourhood,” adds the statement of claim.
Telus seeks an injunction forcing Shaw to end this practice and demands unspecified reparations for loss of profit and punitive damages. Shaw launched what it calls its Fibre+ Gig service, with speeds of up to 1 Gbps, in May.
These allegations have not been proved in court and Shaw has yet to respond to the claim.
