Fair Usage Policy
Wireless Fair Usage
By accepting our Terms and Conditions you agreed to be bound by this policy as described below.
Why do we have one?
Our fair usage policy is designed to make sure your broadband service is as fast and reliable as possible, whenever you want to use it.
Some broadband customers use file sharing software and download or upload large files like music and videos, this is fine if done in moderation but customers that do this a lot use up lots of network capacity and leave less available for everyone else. This is a particular problem if they’re doing it at peak times and it could mean that the speed of your broadband service will be affected.
Am I likely to be affected by the Fair Use Policy?
Most customers won’t be affected at all by our fair usage policy and if you don’t use file sharing software or download lots of large files then it’s unlikely you’ll ever be affected by this policy. If you do then all we ask is that you do so considerately and please do not run these programs on a continuous basis, especially at the peak times between 6pm and midnight.
It’s worth remembering that all of the time you are on the internet you are using data and so leaving the internet connected when you are not using it and streaming music when you aren’t listening to it will all eat into your data allowance, if applicable, and in extreme instances could cause you to be affected by this policy.
What will happen if my data usage is very high?
If you occasionally have very high data usage then this will not have any impact on your connection.
However, our monitoring systems automatically measure data usage on a continuous basis and if
your usage is detected to be high or excessive for a particular time period then your data download or upload bandwidth will be automatically reduced by our system. This bandwidth reduction will remain in place until the high or excessive usage pattern is determined to have stopped.
How do you determine high or excessive usage?
We deem high usage to be a continuous download or upload that exceeds 50% of your maximum
potential data rate for a continuous period of more than 30 minutes. The system uses 15 minute intervals for these calculations. So for example, if a customer has a 2mbps download speed then they could potentially download about 200MB of data in a 15 minute period. If our monitoring system detects a continuous download of more than 100MB per interval in two consecutive 15 minute usage intervals then the system will deem the rate to be high for that connection. The same limits apply to upload data based on your connection speed.
If the monitoring system detects a high usage pattern then the download or upload speed will be automatically reduced to 50% of the normal connection speed for a period of time. If the high usage pattern continues for a further 2 hour period the system will deem the data usage rate to be excessive and a further 50% speed reduction will be implemented automatically. These speed restrictions will remain in place until the data usage returns to normal levels i.e. drops to below 50% of the maximum potential rate being applied by the system at that time.
How do I get back to my normal connection speed?
The system will do this automatically once it detects that the data usage rates have dropped to acceptable levels i.e. below the limits outline above. This will typically take between 30 minutes and one hour to happen once the data usage returns to normal levels. In practice all most users will need to do is to simply stop using file sharing software on their network connection for this to happen.
If you have any further questions then please call our Support team at the contact numbers listed on our website.
