As a customer of County Broadband your use of, and access to, any of our Services is subject to this Acceptable Use Policy (AUP).
The purpose of the policy is to ensure we are providing a fair and sustainable broadband service for all our County Broadband customers as well as ensuring that our customers are not doing anything illegal or malicious on our network.
Definitions
“Service” means the provision of an internet broadband service from County Broadband
“Equipment” means any wired or wireless receivers, aerials, and any connecting apparatus and cabling installed by us or our contractors, to enable the provision of the service.
“You”, “Your” or “Subscriber” refers to the legal person who consented to receive the service.
“We” “Our” “Us” is County Broadband Limited
1. Who is responsible for your internet use
If you allow other individuals to use our services, you will be responsible and held accountable for any breach of our AUP or Terms and Conditions committed by those individuals. If you allow individuals under the age of 18 to use our services, we recommend that you take the reasonable precautions to ensure that they use the services appropriately.
2. Illegal and inappropriate activities
While using any of our services you must comply with the relevant laws that apply in the United Kingdom. This list is not exhaustive but you must not use any part of our services to:
a) download, possess or transmit in any way, illegal material (for example indecent images of children);
b) send, publish, distribute, circulate or otherwise propagate any material that is threatening, invasive of privacy, discriminatory, defamatory, racist, obscene, indecent, offensive, abusive, harmful or malicious;
c) gain or attempt to gain unauthorised access to any computer systems for any purpose;
d) prevent other users of the service from accessing the service;
e) cause critical disruption to the service (e.g. using the services to launch or receive a DDOS attack);
f) execute, for malicious purposes, any form of network monitoring or data interception that may affect third parties;
g) intentionally impair or attempt to impair the operation of any computer, prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer or to impair the operation of any such program or the reliability of any such data (this could include deleting files, changing the desktop settings introducing viruses or malware etc.); or
h) infringe the legal rights of others, including, but not limited to, privacy rights and intellectual property rights.
You must take all reasonable steps to preserve the integrity of the service. In the event that County Broadband discovers, or is informed, that any equipment or software which you use to access to our services has been compromised, we reserve the right to request that you cease use of such equipment or software immediately.
3. Notifications
We regularly send out notifications by email and/or post. As a County Broadband customer you are expected and required to review all messages from County Broadband. This will enable us to advise you of any significant issues that may affect your use of the services.
4. Fair broadband use
Within our network available bandwidth is shared equally amongst all our County Broadband customers who are online at the same time. This means that speeds may be slower at peak times when more County Broadband customers are online compared to at other times when fewer people are online, in particular for customers using applications that require a lot of bandwidth such as downloading films (particularly in HD) and other large files, or streaming video via services like You Tube or Netflix.
Our network is busiest between 5pm and midnight on weekdays and all day at the weekend, but can be busy at other times too, depending on regional, national and international demand.
We therefore monitor how much data is used on every account and we ask that you undertake not to use the Services in any way that would in County Broadband's reasonable opinion materially affect the use of, or access to, the internet of any other person (including substantial data transfers during peak times). This level is set at 400 GB in any one month.
5. Please do not violate anyone’s systems or network security
You must not use County Broadband’s network to violate County Broadband’s network security by any method including:
a) unauthorised access to or use of data, systems or networks, including any attempt to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of a system or network
b) unauthorised monitoring of data or traffic on any network or system without the express authorisation of the owner of the system or network
c) unauthorised interference with any user, host, system or network without the express authorisation of the owner of the system or network.
You must not send, receive, store, distribute, transmit, post, upload or download any materials that are designed to violate County Broadband’s network security or any third party's system or network security. Examples of such prohibited material may include (but are not limited to):
a) programs containing viruses, worms, corrupted files, hoaxes, Trojan horses or any other items of a destructive or deceptive nature
b) tools designed to compromise the security of other sites
c) programs or services designed to send or facilitate the sending of unsolicited advertisements
d) programs or services designed to encourage or facilitate a breach of this AUP or any acceptable use policy of another internet services provider.
You must not connect the County Broadband Network to insecure machines or services able to be exploited by others to carry out actions which constitute a breach of this AUP.
You must not adapt, modify, decompile or reverse engineer any part of County Broadband.
You are responsible for all materials and/or data originating from the machines and/or networks that you have connected to the County Broadband network. You must immediately disconnect (and subsequently secure prior to reconnection) machines generating materials and/or data which contravene this AUP once notified of such activity by County Broadband.
6. Messages
You must not send Messages to anyone who does not wish to receive them. We acknowledge that email and instant messaging are informal methods of communication however you must refrain from sending messages to another user after receiving a request to stop.
You must not send unsolicited bulk messages or any other form of abusive electronic communication. In particular, unsolicited advertising mailings (whether commercial or informational) are strictly prohibited.
You must not operate, host, provide hosting facilities to or assist in any way any web site, email address, or any other online service which is advertised or promoted by means of unsolicited bulk messages (whether commercial or informational), any mass messaging facility or any other form of abusive electronic communication.
You must not send, distribute, or reply to mail-bombs. Mail-bombing is either sending copies of a single message to many users, or sending large or multiple files or messages to a single user with the intention of disrupting their internet experience.
You must not use false message headers or alter the headers of messages to conceal their email address or to prevent internet users from responding to messages. You must not use any email address that you are not authorised to use.
You must not suggest or imply that any message you send is from, authorised or endorsed by, County Broadband or relates to any County Broadband business.
The actions we can take
Firstly, you should be aware that we will block any electronic communication that we reasonably consider to have breached this AUP.
Secondly if you have breached this AUP, or we or a third party reasonably suspect that you may have breached this AUP, we will notify you by email (provided that this notification does not prejudice any investigation) and we may also:
(i) immediately suspend your access to County Broadband, or reduce your speeds until such time as we are satisfied the breach has stopped
(ii) immediately end your County Broadband Contract
(iii) notify and/or pass on the details of the breach of the AUP to any relevant government, statutory, self-regulatory or law enforcement authority
(iv) investigate the alleged breach of the AUP, which may include gathering information from you and/or the complaining party (if any) and the examination of any other data or material on the County Broadband Network or our servers
(v) remove (either temporarily or permanently), copy, store, monitor or otherwise deal with data and/or other material on the County Broadband Network and/or our servers
We will do this at our discretion and without prior notice.
County Broadband will use your personal data and other account information in connection with any investigation carried out by County Broadband in accordance with this AUP, including by disclosing it to any third party authority that County Broadband considers has a legitimate interest in any such investigation or its outcome.
Breach of the AUP
Reports of breaches of this AUP by County Broadband customers can be sent to [email protected]
We reserve the right to investigate any suspected violation(s) of our AUP.
County Broadband is not responsible for any consequences of your failure to employ appropriate security measures to prevent unauthorised access by any third party to the Services.
