Network Management Policy

 

Ziply Fiber invests significant resources to bring Internet access to our customers and strives to provide customers an optimum online experience that enables them to access all available content, including: up-to-date news and information, online shopping, communications tools, movies, video, music, gaming and an array of other online services.

As a result of explosive growth of the Internet and the availability of ever more sophisticated applications, per subscriber bandwidth consumption has dramatically increased. This may cause periodic congestion in the network that Ziply Fiber must address. Generally, we use a best-efforts approach to deliver residential Internet service. This means we do not prioritize one type of traffic or application over other types, except as described in the specialized services section below. We seek to deliver all traffic at the speed the customer has purchased; network management is content and application agnostic.

Ziply Fiber uses network management tools to enforce quality of service to customers for applications that are sensitive to packet loss, delay or jitter like VoIP, time sensitive data, and video traffic.

Key features of our network management are:

• Ziply Fiber does not block, throttle, or inhibit any specific applications or classes of applications.
• Ziply Fiber does not restrict the types of devices that can be connected to its network.
• Ziply Fiber does not engage in paid prioritization.
• Ziply Fiber does not favor, directly or indirectly, some traffic over other traffic to the benefit of our affiliates.

Like other Internet service providers, Ziply Fiber manages its network to provide customers a secure and optimal Internet experience. We monitor the flow of traffic on our network, including the amount of data sent to and from customer connections, the source and destination of data, and the type—but not the contents—of information sent and received. In limited circumstances, we may also review the contents of the information to determine whether it is malicious (such as spam or a virus) or when required by law. We continually upgrade our security and network management tools based on technology advances and network needs.

Congestion Management. Our network and its bandwidth through which we provide Internet access service are shared among all uses. This means that our customers share upstream and downstream bandwidth. To ensure all of our customers a high-quality Internet access experience, the FCC allows Ziply Fiber to engage in reasonable network management practices, including congestion management practices. Active congestion management practices typically involves the use of network management tools which can cause minor and temporary impairments to a user’s experience.

To date, however, Ziply Fiber has not determined it necessary to deploy any network management tools. Rather, Ziply Fiber actively monitors its networks for utilization trends. We receive regular reports showing changes in network traffic and congestion. We use this information to plan and implement increases in available bandwidth, port additions or additional connectivity to the Internet which enhance our customers’ service and user experience. We expect new technologies or unforeseen developments in the future may make it necessary to implement a new or different congestion management program, and we will update these disclosures and otherwise notify our customers of the scope and specifics of any new or materially different congestion management program or should we begin use of congestion management tools.

Application-Specific Practices. We do not discriminate against or prevent customers or users of our Internet access service from accessing, sending or receiving lawful content or using lawful applications or services of their choice provided that the applications or services do not harm our network or the provision of our Internet access service or others who use our service, or that facilitates the theft of our service. To avoid these harms, We have implemented hostile port blocking as part of its reasonable network management practices to prevent unwanted files, browser hacking and virus attacks. Ziply Fiber generally allows customers to attach any lawful device to its network so long as it does not impede the provision of Internet access service, harm the network, enable theft of the service or a violation of our Acceptable Use Policy or any terms of service, or harm other users of the service.

Network and End User Security. We employ certain practices to maintain the security of our network and our end users from unwanted and harmful activities. These include practices designed to protect our servers against denial of service attacks and to prevent malware, spyware, spam and identity theft. To preserve the effectiveness of our security practices, we do not publicly disclose specific information detailing the levels and types of activities that may trigger our deployment of security protection measures. When security measures are employed, they may affect performance characteristics of the service or the ability to access certain suspicious websites, but such measures are employed in a manner designed to have non- discriminatory impact on all similarly-situated customers and end-users.

We filter email traffic for virus activity and spam using industry standard virus scanning and prevention techniques. If an email message is found to contain a virus or other harmful content, the message will be deleted without notification given to either the sender or the intended recipient(s).

Additionally, like other Internet service providers, our Internet services are configured to use an Internet protocol address, which may be a publicly-routable Internet protocol address or a privately managed IP address utilizing CGN (Carrier Gateway NAT) technology.

Service Performance. We deliver Internet services over two different networks. For information about our DSL network, please visit www.ziplyfiber.com/corporate/internet-disclosures.

On our fiber optic network, we offer customers a variety of Internet access service tiers that are primarily differentiated by the speed of data transfer. The service tiers are usually denoted by a number that identifies the high-end of that service tier’s speed range—commonly referred to as “up to” the noted speed. The speeds we identify for each Internet access service level are the maximum upload and download speeds that customers are likely to experience. We provision our customers’ modems and engineer our network to deliver the speeds to which our customers subscribe with an additional 10% headroom. We conduct regional testing to ensure we are delivering these speeds. However, we do not guarantee that a customer will actually achieve those speeds at all times. A variety of factors can affect upload and download speeds, including customer equipment, network equipment, congestion in our network, congestion beyond our network, performance issues with an Internet application, content, or service, and more.

Specialized Services—VoIP and Video

For certain customers, Ziply Fiber offers specialized services, such as voice over IP (“VoIP”) and video service, over the same customer facilities as broadband Internet access services. When the customer uses these specialized services, less bandwidth will be available for broadband Internet access service than when they are not using the specialized services. When the specialized service is not in use, customers can in most cases use the capacity for broadband Internet access.

Usage Terms & Conditions

Customers can consult our general Terms and Conditions of service as well as Internet pricing plans for more information about their Internet service.