Network Management Policy

Farmers Coop Telephone Co. (FCTC) commits to the open and non-discriminatory use of the Internet by its customers and commits to use reasonable network management practices to ensure an open Internet.  FCTC  will manage its network and provide access in accordance with the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) Open Internet Rules (adopted December 21, 2010 in 25 FCC Rcd 17905) and in compliance with any future rules adopted by the FCC.

Transparency

FCTC shall make available public information on its website http.fctc.coop regarding its network management practices, performance and commercial terms of its service sufficient for consumers to make an informed choice regarding their use of such services.

FCTC will not unjustly or unreasonably prevent or interfere with competition among Content, Applications, Service, or Device Providers.

Network Security and Congestion Management

FCTC uses generally accepted technical measures to provide acceptable service levels to all customers, such as application-neutral bandwidth allocation, as well as measures to address service attacks, illegal content and other harmful activities to protect network integrity and reliability.

FCTC reserves the right to prioritize traffic based on real time and non-real time applications during heavy congestion periods based on generally accepted technical measures.  FCTC sets speed thresholds on the amount of data you as a customer can upload and download within stated time periods.  If you exceed these thresholds, FCTC will temporarily limit the speed at which you can send and receive data over the FCTC access network.  FCTC may use other traffic management and prioritization tools to help ensure equitable access to the FCTC network for all customers. 

FCTC monitors customer usage to efficiently manage the performance of the network to ensure a sustainable quality broadband service is provided.  Peak network usage is between 4 pm and 11 pm Monday – Friday and 10 am – 11 pm Saturday and Sunday.  During peak usage times, priority is given to applications such as browsing, email, streaming, instant messaging, gaming and VoIP. 

Congestion due to malfunctioning hardware and/or software will be remedied as quickly as network engineers can diagnose and identify the offending hardware / software.

Congestion due to malice will be remedied using any technique available, including protocol-aware filtering and rate-limiting, to control and limit the offending source. FCTC may seek criminal charges against those who inflict network malice.  FCTC may also attempt to recover costs incurred from network malice.

It is not acceptable to use the FCTC network for any purpose that violates local, state or federal laws or to transmit communications that might be highly offensive or damaging to any recipients or to use the service in a manner that is unintended.  It is not acceptable to interfere with, violate, circumvent, misuse, distribute or disrupt network users, equipment or services, which include but are not limited to:

·         Attempting to obtain unauthorized access to any network or account. This includes accessing data not intended for end user customers, logging into a server or account without being expressly authorized to access or probing the security of other networks.

·         Attempts to interfere with the Service of others including users, hosts and networks. This includes “denial of service” attacks, “flooding” of networks, deliberate attempts to overload a Service and attempts to “crash” any host.

·         Reselling any FCTC Internet Services, without FCTC’s written consent.

·         Distribution of FCTC Internet Services beyond the scope of your end-user account.

·         Equipment, accessory, apparatus, circuit or devices that are harmful to the network, shall not be attached to or connected with FCTC facilities.

·         Circumventing copyright laws and regulation, including the unauthorized download of music, video, images, books, software or content and/or other copyright protected works. 

FCTC provides Spam filtering with each customer’s email address.  Details of this service are listed on FCTC’s website.  FCTC will not ask you for your password in an unsolicited telephone call or email. If you believe your password has been compromised, you should immediately change your password to prevent the unauthorized use of it.

Blocking

FCTC shall not unjustly or unreasonably block access to lawful content, applications, services or non-harmful devices, subject to reasonable network management. 

Discrimination

FCTC shall not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic over a consumer’s broadband Internet access service, subject to reasonable network management practices. 

Commercial Pricing

Please click on the following website link for pricing information including monthly prices, usage-based fees, and fees for early termination or additional network services: www.fctc.coop

Contact Information

If you have any questions regarding this policy, please contact FCTC customer service at: 319-476-7800.