Broadband Internet Access Services
Network Management Practices, Performance Characteristics, and
Commercial Terms and Conditions for Fixed Services
Custer Telephone Cooperative, Inc. (“the Company”) has adopted the following network
management practices, performance characteristics, and commercial terms and conditions for its
broadband Internet access services in compliance with the Federal Communications
Commission’s (“FCC’s) Open Internet Framework requirements (GN Docket No. 09-191 and
WC Docket No. 07-52).
These practices, characteristics, terms and conditions are intended to help preserve the Internet as
an open framework that enables consumer choice, freedom of expression, end-user control,
competition, and freedom to innovate without permission, while permitting the Company to
manage its network reasonably.
These practices, characteristics, terms and conditions are effective as of November 20, 2011.
The Company may add, delete, or modify certain practices, performance characteristics, terms
and conditions from time to time at its discretion. It will provide clear written notice of these
changes on this website, but will not notify customers, content providers, applications providers,
service providers or device providers individually of such changes by bill inserts, e-mails, tweets,
telephone calls or other direct communications unless specifically required to do so by federal or
state authorities. The Company will provide as much advance notice as practicable of such
changes. It will normally endeavor to furnish written notice on this website thirty (30) days
before changes become effective, but reserves the right to use a shorter notice period when
regulatory, operational, technical or other circumstances warrant.
I. Network Management Practices
The Company manages its network with the goal of providing the best practicable broadband
Internet experience to all of its customers. Within the scope of its resources, it attempts to
deploy and maintain adequate capacity and facilities within its own network, and to acquire
sufficient Middle Mile capacity or facilities outside its service area to connect with the Internet.
The Company and its staff use their best efforts to monitor, address and minimize (but do not
guarantee that they can prevent) the effects of spam, viruses, security attacks, network
congestion, and other phenomena that can degrade the service of affected customers.
A. Congestion Management Practices
Congestion is an Internet access service problem that can slow web browsing, downloading, and
other activities of the customers during certain peak usage periods. Congestion may be caused
by capacity limits and bottlenecks in a service provider’s own network, or by limitations in the
capacity of the Middle Mile transport facilities and services that many rural service providers
must purchase from unrelated entities to carry the traffic of their customers between their service
areas and the closest Internet nodes.
As of October 2011, the Company has experienced rare problems with congestion.
If significant congestion problems arise in the future, the Company’s most desired approach is to
determine the source of the problem, and to increase the capacity of the affected portions of its
network and/or of its Middle Mile routes where warranted. However, network and Middle Mile
upgrades often cannot be accomplished instantaneously because they require negotiations,
authorizations and agreements with multiple unrelated entities such as lenders, government
agencies, equipment vendors, property owners and other carriers.
If or when network and/or Middle Mile upgrades are not able to be deployed on a timely or
reasonable basis, the Company reserves the right to monitor and identify which customer
accounts are using the greatest amount of bandwidth during periods of heavy congestion, and to
contact those “high-volume customers” to work out a solution to the problem. The Company’s
preferred solution will be to help such “high-volume customers” find acceptable times during
non-peak periods to engage in the same activities.
If that preferred solution is not possible, the Company reserves the right to manage temporarily
the Internet traffic of “high-volume customers” during periods of significant congestion until
such periods of congestion pass. This temporary traffic management will be accomplished by
technically and commercially feasible methods that are available or that become available in the
future. Affected “high-volume customers” will still be able to access the Internet and engage in
any and all online activities they desire. However, during periods of congestion they may
experience conditions such as longer times to download or upload files, slower Web surfing,
and/or slower movements during online game playing.
Customers should note that any temporary traffic management practices employed by the
Company will impact only identified and notified “high-volume customers” during periods when
congestion problems are experienced, and will not be based upon the types of content,
applications, services, or devices such customers use. On the basis of its knowledge and
experience as of November 2011, the Company expects that periods of temporary traffic
management, if any, will be brief and infrequent.
For purposes of its congestion management practices, the Company will consider a period in
which a “congestion problem” arises and exists to be one where 80% of the available transport is
used and/or 50% of switching capacity used for periods equal to or exceeding 30 minutes.
B. Application-Specific Behavior Practices
The Company does not favor or inhibit certain applications or classes of applications.
Customers may use any lawful and commercially available application which they desire on the
Company’s network.
The Company does not normally monitor the contents of the traffic or applications of its
customers. It undertakes no obligation to monitor or investigate the lawfulness of the
applications used by its customers. If any party contacts the Company with a substantial
allegation that an application being used by a customer is unlawful, the Company will investigate
the matter (including consultation, as it deems appropriate, with attorneys, consultants, federal or
state regulators, and/or federal, state or local law enforcement agencies), and will take
appropriate actions to deal with the use of applications that are demonstrated to be unlawful.
Customers may occasionally develop their own applications, or modify commercially available
applications. The Company will not prohibit the use of customer-developed or modified
applications unless there is a reasonable belief that such applications will cause harm to its
network.
The Company does not block or rate-control specific protocols or protocol ports.
The Company does not modify protocol fields in ways that are not prescribed by the applicable
protocol standards.
C. Device Attachment Rules
The Company does not have any approval procedures that must be satisfied before a device can
be connected to its network. Customers may use any lawful, compatible, type-accepted (if
necessary) and commercially available device which they desire on the Company’s network, as
long as such device does not harm the network.
The Company does not normally monitor the devices used by its customers. It warns customers
that some types of devices (for example, Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification
(‘DOCSIS’) devices intended for use on cable broadband networks) may not be compatible with
its fiber optic and digital subscriber line (“DSL”) network.
The Company undertakes no obligation to monitor or investigate the lawfulness of the devices
used by its customers. If any party contacts the Company with a substantial allegation that a
device being used by a customer is unlawful, the Company will investigate the matter (including
consultation, as it deems appropriate, with attorneys, consultants, federal or state regulators,
and/or federal, state or local law enforcement agencies), and will take appropriate actions to deal
with the use of a device that is demonstrated to be unlawful.
Customers may occasionally develop their own devices, or modify commercially available
devices. The Company will not prohibit the use of lawful customer-developed or modified
devices unless there is a reasonable belief that such devices will cause harm to its network.
D. Security Practices
The Company does not normally monitor the traffic of its customers. It undertakes no obligation
to monitor or protect such customer traffic from spam, viruses, denial-of-service attacks, or other
malicious, unlawful or unwanted activities.
The Company recognizes that customers can purchase spam filtering and anti-virus software
from commercial vendors to meet their needs. The Company may from time to time offer antispam and/or anti-virus software or services to customers who desire to purchase them from the
Company. When offered, these software or services will be described and priced in other
sections of this website and in the Company’s sales and marketing materials. Customers are free
to obtain anti-spam and/or anti-virus software or services from any source they desire, as long as
such software or services do not disrupt or degrade the traffic of other customers of the Company
or harm the network.
A customer that is subjected to a denial-of-service attack, or similar malicious, unlawful or
unwanted activity, is urged to notify the Company as soon as possible. The Company will work
with the customer, other service providers, federal and state regulators, and/or law enforcement
to determine the source of such activity, and to take appropriate, and technically and
economically reasonable efforts to address the matter.
The Company employs commercially appropriate security procedures to protect its network and
its customer records from unauthorized access by third parties. The Company does not
guarantee that it can protect customers from any and/or all security breaches.
E. Traffic Blocking
The Company does not block any lawful content, applications, devices, and/or non-harmful
devices.
The only potential exceptions where blocking may occur entail the unlawful or harmful
circumstances set forth in Sections I.A through I.D above. The Company believes that all such
circumstances constitute reasonable network management practices.
The Company does not knowingly and intentionally impair, degrade or delay the traffic on its
network so as to render effectively unusable certain content, applications, services and/or nonharmful devices. However, the Company notes that congestion may from time to time impair,
degrade, or delay some traffic.
The Company does not charge edge service providers of content, applications, services and/or
devices any fees simply for transporting traffic between them and its customers.
II. Performance Characteristics
Many of the service and performance characteristics of the Company’s broadband Internet access
services are contained in the service offering portions of this website. The Company offers
different tiers of service at different prices, and changes these from time to time.
A. General Service Description
The Company uses a hybrid fiber optic and copper digital subscriber line (“DSL”) network that
reaches approximately 91 percent of its customers in its rural service area, and a fiber-to-thehome (“FTTH”) network that reaches approximately 9 percent of its customers. The expected
access speeds in the DSL portions of the network range from 256 kilabits per second (“Kbps”)
downstream and 128 Kbps upstream to 10 megabits per second (“Mbps”) downstream and 1
Mbps upstream, depending upon the actual lengths of the respective fiber trunks and copper
lines. The expected access speeds in the FTTH portion of the network range from 256 Kbps
downstream and 128 Kbps upstream to 20 Mbps downstream and 5 Mbps upstream.
Actual access speeds and time delays (latency) are impacted by the length, capacity and
congestion of Middle Mile transport facilities (between the Company’s service area and Internet
nodes) as well as the characteristic of the Company’s own network. Because conditions on these
facilities and routes can change frequently, the Company can provide estimated actual access
speed and latency information only for specific recent time periods requested by a customer.
The Company’s service is not suitable for real-time applications.
B. Impact of Specialized Services
The Company does not offer specialized services to end-users.
C. Impact of Middle Mile Capacity Constraints
The Company must purchase Middle Mile capacity and/or services from other entities for routes
approximately 268 to 279 miles long between the Company’s central office and the closest
Internet nodes.
The Company has a minority ownership interest in one of its Middle Mile providers, but does
not control it. The Company cannot guarantee that it will be able to obtain additional Middle
Mile capacity at commercially reasonable prices if and when needs for additional Middle Mile
capacity arise.
III. Commercial Terms and Conditions
The commercial terms and conditions of the Company’s broadband Internet access services are
contained in greater detail in the “Terms and Conditions of Service” document which can be
found at www.custertel.net/about/policies/. This section provides a brief overview or reference to
terms and conditions detailed elsewhere, plus discussions of other terms and conditions required
by the FCC’s Open Internet Framework.
A. Pricing Terms and Conditions
The Company does not impose usage-based fees upon its service.
The Company does impose fees for early termination with respect to certain of its service
arrangements. These early termination fees are imposed upon the service arrangements
specifically identified at www.custertel.net/services/internet/ in the manner and under the
conditions set forth therein.
The Company assesses fees for additional network services as indicated at
www.custertel.net/services/internet/. In addition, the Company is willing to consider and
negotiate prices for customized additional network services requested by specific customers or
edge service providers if such services can be designed, developed and furnished in a
commercially reasonable manner. If and when such customized services are developed and
furnished, the Company reserves the right to adapt and provide them to other customers on a
non-discriminatory basis so long as such subsequent provision does not entail disclosure of
proprietary or confidential information of the initial customer
B. No Unreasonable Discrimination
The Company does not unreasonably discriminate in its transmission of traffic over the
broadband Internet access services of its customers. It endeavors to give its customers as much
choice and control as practicable among its different service offerings and among the content,
application, service and device offerings of edge service providers. When reasonable network
management practices entail differential treatment of traffic, the Company does not discriminate
among specific uses, or classes of uses, of its network.
The Company does not impair, degrade or delay VoIP applications or services that compete with
its voice services and those of its affiliates.
The Company does not impair, degrade, delay or otherwise inhibit access by its customers to
lawful content, applications, services or non-harmful devices.
The Company does not impair free expression by actions such as slowing traffic from particular
websites or blogs.
The Company does not use or demand “pay-for-priority” or similar arrangements that directly or
indirectly favor some traffic over other traffic.
The Company does not prioritize its own content, application, services, or devices, or those of its
affiliates.
C. Privacy Policies
As indicated above, the Company’s network management practices do not generally entail
inspection of network traffic.
The Company retains and stores certain traffic information (such as the identity of the customer
using a particular IP address during a specific period) for time periods required by federal or
state law.
The Company retains, stores and provides to law enforcement any traffic information requested
pursuant to the procedures of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act
(“CALEA”), the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”) or other applicable national
security or criminal statutes.
The Company does collect traffic information which is used on a troubleshooting basis to assist
the customer and to protect the customer and network from unlawful attacks.
The Company’s other privacy policies are posted at www.custertel.net/about/policies/
D. Redress Options
Questions and complaints regarding the foregoing matters should be addressed to the Company’s
Director of Broadband and Central Office Operations at 208-879-2281 or ben.glenn@custertel.com
The Company strongly desires to resolve questions, complaints and other problems of its
customers and edge service providers in an informal and direct manner that satisfies all interested
parties to the greatest extent practicable.
Customers and edge service providers that are not able to obtain satisfaction from the Company
have the option of invoking the FCC’s informal and formal complaint procedures regarding
Open Internet Framework disputes.