Acceptable Usage Policy

THIS ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY (“AUP”) IS A MATERIAL PART OF YOUR AGREEMENT WITH OPENTEL FOR PROVISION OF ITS SERVICES TO ITS CUSTOMERS. PLEASE READ AND FOLLOW THIS AUP CAREFULLY. THIS AUP MAY BE REVISED FROM TIME TO TIME BY OPENTEL.

This AUP forms part of the agreement between you and Opentel and is incorporated by reference into Opentel’s terms and conditions. You and anyone who uses or accesses your Opentel Internet services must comply with, and shall be bound by the terms of, this AUP.

1) LAWS AND REGULATIONS

Using Opentel’s service to transmit, distribute or store of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes, without limitation, material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secrets or other intellectual property right used without proper authorisation, and material that is, defamatory, constitutes hate speech, is an illegal threat, elicits violence or violates export control laws.

2) THE NETWORK

You acknowledge that Opentel is unable to exercise control over the content of the information passing over its network and the Internet, including any websites, electronic mail transmissions, news groups or other material created or accessible over its network and/or services. Therefore, Opentel is not responsible for the content of any messages or other information transmitted over its infrastructure.

You may obtain and download any materials marked as available for download off the Internet but are not permitted to use your Internet access to distribute any copyrighted materials unless permission for such distribution is granted to you by the owner of the materials.

You are prohibited from obtaining and/or disseminating any unlawful materials, including but not limited to stolen intellectual property, child sexual abuse material, hate-speech or materials that is intended to incite violence.

3) SYSTEM AND NETWORK SECURITY

All references to systems and networks under this section includes the Internet (and all those systems and/or networks to which user is granted access through Opentel) and includes but is not limited to the infrastructure of Opentel itself.

You may not circumvent user authentication or security of any host, network, or account (referred to as “cracking” or “hacking”), nor interfere with service to any user, host, or network (referred to as “denial of service attacks”).

Violations of system or network security by you are prohibited and may result in civil or criminal liability. Opentel may investigate incidents involving such violations and will co-operate with law enforcement officials if a criminal violation is suspected.

Examples of system or network security violations include, without limitation, the following:

• Unauthorised access to or use of data, systems or networks, including any attempt to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of any system or network or to breach security or authentication measures without the express authorisation of Opentel.
• Unauthorised monitoring of data or traffic on the network or systems without express authorisation of Opentel.
• Interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks; and
• Forging of any TCP-IP packet header (spoofing) or any part of the header information in an email or a newsgroup posting. 

4) EMAIL USE

It is explicitly prohibited to:

• send unsolicited bulk mail messages (“junk mail” or “spam”) of any nature (commercial advertising, political tracts, announcements, etc.). This is strongly objected to by most Internet users and the repercussions against the offending party and Opentel can often result in disruption of service to other users connected to Opentel.
• forward or propagate chain letters or malicious e-mail.
• send multiple unsolicited electronic mail messages or “mail-bombing” to one or more recipient.
• sending bulk electronic messages to recipients that have not opted in to receive such messages.
• using redirect links in unsolicited commercial e-mail to advertise a website or service.
• Your mail servers must be secured against public relay as a protection to both them and the Internet at large. Mail servers that are unsecured against public relay often become abused by unscrupulous operators for spam delivery and upon detection such delivery must be disallowed. Opentel reserves the right to examine users’ mail servers to confirm that no mails are being sent from the mail server through public relay and the results of such checks can be made available to you. Opentel also reserves the right to examine the mail servers of any users using Opentel mail servers for “smarthosting”. All relay checks will be done in strict accordance with Opentel’s policy of preserving customer privacy. 

5) COMPLAINTS

Upon receipt of a complaint, or having become aware of an incident, Opentel reserves the right to:

• Inform you of the incident.
• In the case of individual users suspend your account and withdraw your network access privileges completely.
• In severe cases suspend your service until abuse can be prevented by appropriate means.
• Share information concerning the incident with other Internet access providers, or publish the information, and/or make available users’ details to law enforcement agencies.
• All cases of violation of the above Acceptable Use Policy should be reported to support@opentel.co.za.

6) ISPA MEMBERSHIP AND CODE OF CONDUCT

Opentel confirms that, in compliance with section 72 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, Opentel is a member of the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) and has adopted and implemented the association’s official Code of Conduct, which can be viewed at https://ispa.org.za/code-of-conduct/. 

7) FAIR USAGE POLICY

Usage Guidelines and Fair Use

The Internet service is provided over a shared, “best endeavours” and contended network with limited service guarantees, which may be impacted by the activities of other users.

To help ensure that all customers have fair and equal use of the service and to protect the integrity of its network, Opentel reserves the right, and will take necessary steps, to prevent excessive usage, or create an unusually large burden on our network, including, without limitation, continuously uploading or downloading streaming video or audio; continuous FTP uploading or downloading, or otherwise generating levels of traffic sufficient to impede others' ability to send or retrieve information, or to use the services in an abusive manner in connection with any unlimited or uncapped packages, options or promotions

The action that Opentel may take includes, but is not limited to:
• Shaping throughput;
• Prioritizing services utilizing specific ports or communication protocols; and
• Rate limiting throughput.

This policy applies to and will be enforced for both intended as well as unintended (e.g., viruses, worms, malicious code, or otherwise unknown causes) excessive usage. Where excessive usage is as a result of unintended usage, Opentel may request that the source of the unintended usage be removed.

Technical Measures to Prevent Abuse of the Internet Service

Opentel reserves the right to take such action as may be necessary to protect the integrity of the Opentel network, including system monitoring, protocol management and shutting down of ports affected by viruses, worms or other malicious code.

Opentel reserves the right to establish policies, rules and limitations concerning the use of any Opentel service in order to inter alia, detect and prevent abuse of a service and protect the integrity of the Opentel network.

Opentel reserves the right to monitor its network for excessive usage and may, in its sole discretion, impose limitations on bandwidth. Users are required to comply with any such bandwidth limitations imposed by Opentel. Failure to do so may result in the restriction, termination or suspension of your service. Unless a user subscribes to a business package and the user is permitted in terms of such business package, users

8) OPENTEL AUP
• may not use any service for anything other than the user’s personal use; and
• may not resell any services;
• may not receive any charge or benefit for the use of the service; and
• may not provide Internet access or any other feature of the service to any third party or in any way exploit the service for commercial benefit.

If Opentel has reason to believe, in its own discretion, that a user is acting in violation of this clause in any way, Opentel may take steps to:
• limit throughput;
• prevent or limit the service through specific ports or communication protocols; and/or
• suspend or completely terminate the service in respect of users who grossly abuse the network through improper or excessive usage.

9) LEGAL RIGHTS
Opentel reserves the right to modify this policy at any time, which changes shall become effective as soon as they are posted to the Opentel website.