Acceptable use
The small number of things that will get a connection suspended.
The idea
This is a short list because it is meant to be read. It covers the things that would actually get a connection suspended — not a catalogue of everything we could object to.
You are responsible for what happens on your connection, including what other people in the house do with it.
Nothing illegal
Do not use the connection to break the law. That includes going after other people's computers or accounts, distributing material that is illegal to possess or share, and fraud.
Where something is plainly illegal and serious, we will suspend the service immediately rather than write to you about it first.
Nothing that attacks the network
Do not use the connection to flood, scan or attack anybody — ours or anybody else's. Do not run anything that deliberately generates traffic to cause a problem.
This is usually not deliberate. A machine in the house gets infected and starts doing it on its own. If we see it, we will ring you and help you find it, and we will only suspend the service if it carries on.
No spam
Do not send bulk unsolicited email, and do not run a mail server that lets other people send it through you.
This one matters more than it sounds. A single spamming machine on our network gets our addresses blocked, and then other customers' email stops being delivered. It is not a victimless thing.
It is for your address
The service is for the building we installed it at. Do not resell it, and do not run a link from it to supply somebody else's building.
Sharing your wifi with a neighbour who drops round is not what this is about. Running a connection across the yard to another house is.
If you want to connect more than one building, ring us — there is a proper way to do that and it is not expensive.
What happens if there is a problem
For anything that is not urgent and not plainly illegal, you get told first. We ring, we tell you what we are seeing, and we give you a reasonable chance to sort it out.
For something serious — an active attack, something clearly illegal, something damaging other customers right now — we may suspend the service first and explain afterwards. We will still explain.
If your service is suspended and you fix the cause, tell us and we will put it back on. A suspension is meant to stop a problem, not to punish you.
Heavy use is not abuse
Worth saying plainly: using a lot of data is not a breach of this policy. There is no cap and no overage charge, and downloading a great deal is not something we will ever contact you about.
There are busy times when we have to limit what one connection takes so the tower keeps working for everybody. That is a normal part of running a shared network, it is written down at traffic management, and it is not a penalty.