Broadband Internet Access Service Network Management Disclosure

 

The Tri-County Telephone Association, Inc. (the Company) 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 within the realm of the Open Internet principle. Generally, the Company utilizes a best-efforts approach to deliver Broadband Internet Access Service so that customers experience speeds at or near the advertised levels.

 

Key attributes of the Company’s network management are:

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

 

The Company may use network management tools to optimize quality of service to customers for applications that are sensitive to packet loss, delay or jitter like VoIP, time sensitive data, and video traffic. The Company offers Specialized Services, such as IP Video or Voice over IP (“VoIP”), over the same last mile facilities as broadband Internet access services. While the VoIP and Video traffic are given priority, there is sufficient capacity in the company’s last mile optical network that congestion should not occur for the internet access service speeds currently provided by the company.

 

The Company 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 the Company’s Acceptable Use Policy or any terms of service, or harm other users of the service.

 

Service Performance

All Company Broadband Internet Access Services are provided over optical fiber technology. The Service speeds identified in the Company’s marketing materials and other communications reflect maximum advertised speed and services provided will be “up to” those advertised Actual speed experienced by a customer will vary based on multiple factors including inside wiring and customer equipment configuration, interference on the customers line, website(s) accessed, and internet congestion.

 

Latency is highly variable depending on the network path, other providers in the path, the distance to the destination, and performance of end destination servers. Customers should expect roundtrip latency to most general internet sites in the range from 50-100ms.

 

Security Policy

The Company is dedicated to managing its network to ensure that all customers receive a secure online experience. We use industry-leading security practices to manage our network, provide services to our customers, and ensure compliance with our Acceptable Use Policy.

These tools and practices may change from time to time to keep up with the new and innovative ways that customers use the network and to keep up with changing network technologies.

The Company uses industry best practices, in conjunction with its trusted partners, to try to prevent virus/spam delivery to customer email accounts, automatically detect and mitigate (Denial of Service) DOS attacks for our customers and blocking of malicious and phishing sites to prevent fraud against customers and to prevent customers from getting infected via DNS black-holing and Internet Protocol address (IP) black-holing.

 

Commercial Terms

Customers can learn about the specific pricing and service availability by calling or visiting the Company’s local business offices and by accessing their website www.tctelco.net.

The Company’s current Broadband Internet Access Service offering does not include usage­ based fees. Other terms or use are listed in the Company’s Internet Terms & Conditions & Acceptable Use Policy and by accessing their website www.tctelco.net.

 

Privacy Policy

Like most companies, we have certain information about our customers and use it to provide our services. We also share it as needed to meet our business goals or fulfill our legal obligations. We protect the information we have about our customers, and we require those we share it with to protect it too. We use information generated on our networks to manage those networks, to plan for future development, and to keep our services running reliably and efficiently. For example, we monitor data to check for viruses, to control spam, to prevent attacks that might disable our services, to ensure that your traffic does not violate our Internet Terms & Conditions & Acceptable Use Policy, and to guard against other inappropriate or illegal activity. This may involve looking at the characteristics of our network traffic, such as traffic volumes, beginning and ending points of transmissions, and the types of applications being used to send traffic across our network.  In limited circumstances, we need to examine the content of the data (such as the specific Web sites being visited, files being transmitted, or application being used) for the purposes described above, in circumstances when we are concerned about fraud or harassment, to repair a problem we detect or that a customer contacts us about, or when we are providing the content of broadband traffic to law enforcement which we only do as authorized bylaw.

 

Redress Policy

If you have any questions or complaints regarding The Tri-County Telephone Association, Inc. Broadband Internet Access services and the subjects of this disclosure, you may call or visit our local business office or send us a message to tctelco@tctelco.net.

The Tri-County Telephone Association, Inc. takes all such questions and complaints seriously. The appropriate Company personnel will review all such submissions and respond in a timely manner.