Acceptable Use Policy
Tesuco Telecommunications (Pty) Limited operating through its FTTH division, hereinafter referred to as “FREDD”.
This Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”) specifies the actions prohibited to users of the network and systems (“infrastructure”) of Tesuco Telecommunications (Pty) Ltd (“FREDD”) and its subsidiaries.
Users are required to adhere to this policy without exception.
The terms “User”, “Subscriber” and “Customer” are used interchangeably.
1. LAWS AND REGULATIONS
1.1. FREDD’s infrastructure may be used only for lawful purposes. Users may not
violate any applicable laws or regulations of South Africa within the territory of
South Africa. Should the user reside outside of South Africa, the laws of the country
in which the user resides shall apply.
1.2. Transmission, distribution or storage of any material on or through the infrastructure
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
obscene, defamatory, constitutes an illegal threat, or violates export control laws.
2. THE NETWORK
2.1. The user acknowledges that FREDD is unable to exercise control over the
content of the information passing over the infrastructure and the Internet, including
any websites, electronic mail transmissions, news groups or other material created
or accessible over its infrastructure. Therefore, FREDD is not responsible for
the content of any messages or other information transmitted over its infrastructure.
2.2. FREDD’s infrastructure may be used to link into other networks worldwide
and the user agrees to conform to the acceptable use policies of these networks.
2.3. The user may obtain and download any materials marked as available for download
off the Internet but is not permitted to use its Internet access to distribute any
copyrighted materials unless permission for such distribution is granted to the user
by the owner of the materials.
2.4. The user is prohibited from obtaining and/or disseminating any unlawful materials,
including but not limited to stolen intellectual property, child pornography, and/or any
unlawful hate-speech materials.
3. SYSTEM AND NETWORK SECURITY
3.1. 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 FREDD) and includes but is not limited to the infrastructure of FREDD itself.
3.2. The user 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”).
3.3. Violations of system or network security by the user are prohibited, and may result
in civil or criminal liability. FREDD will investigate incidents involving such
violations and will involve and will cooperate with law enforcement officials if a
criminal violation is suspected. Examples of system or network security violations
include, without limitation, the following:
3.3.1. 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 FREDD.
3.3.2. Unauthorised monitoring of data or traffic on the network or systems without
express authorisation of FREDD
3.3.3. Interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation,
mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks.
3.3.4. Forging of any TCP-IP packet header (spoofing) or any part of the header
information in an email or a newsgroup posting.
4. FAIR ACCESS POLICY
4.1. To help ensure that all users have fair and equal use of the service and to protect the
integrity of the network, FREDD reserves the right, and will take necessary steps, to
prevent improper or excessive usage thereof, the action that FREDD may take
includes, but is not limited to:
4.1.1. Limiting throughput
4.1.2. Preventing or limiting service through specific ports or communication protocols; and/or
4.1.3. Complete termination of service to users who grossly abuse the network through
improper or excessive usage.
4.2. This policy applies to and will be enforced for intended and unintended (e.g., viruses, worms,
malicious code, or otherwise unknown causes) prohibited usage.
4.3. Online activity will be subject to the available bandwidth, data storage and other limitations
of the service provided, which FREDD may, from time to time, revise at its own
discretion and without prior notice to the customer.
5. EMAIL USE
5.1. It is explicitly prohibited to send unsolicited bulk mail messages (“junk mail” or “spam”)of
any kind (commercial advertising, political tracts, announcements, etc.). This is strongly
objected to by most Internet users and the repercussions against the offending party and
FREDD can often result in disruption of service to other users connected to FREDD; forward or propagate chain letters nor malicious e-mail; send multiple unsolicited
electronic mail messages or “mail-bombing” to one or more recipients; sending bulk electronic
messages without identifying, within the message, a reasonable means of opting out from
receiving additional messages from the sender; using redirect links in unsolicited
commercial e-mail to advertise a website or service;
5.2. Maintaining of mailing lists by users of FREDD is accepted only with the permission
and approval of the list members, and at the members’ sole discretion. Should mailing lists
contain invalid or undeliverable addresses or addresses of unwilling recipients those
addresses must be promptly removed.
5.3. Public relay occurs when a mail server is accessed by a third party from another domain and
utilised to deliver mails, without the authority or consent of the owner of the mail-server.
Users’ mail servers must be secure against public relay as a protection to both themselves
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. FREDD 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 the user. FREDD also reserves the
right to examine the mail servers of any users using FREDD mail servers for
“smart hosting” (when the user relays its mail off a FREDD mail server to a mail server
of its own) or similar services at any time to ensure that the servers are properly secured
against a public relay. All relay checks will be done in strict accordance with FREDD’s
policy of preserving customer privacy.
6. COMPLAINTS
6.1. Upon receipt of a complaint, or having become aware of an incident, FREDD reserves
the right to:
6.1.1. Inform the user’s network administrator of the incident and require the network
administrator or network owner to deal with the incident according to this AUP.
6.1.2. In the case of individual users suspend the user’s account and withdraw the user’s
network access privileges completely.
6.1.3. Charge the offending parties for administrative costs as well as for machine and human
time lost due to the incident.
6.1.4. In severe cases suspend access of the user’s entire network until abuse can be prevented
by appropriate means.
6.1.5. Share information concerning the incident with other Internet access providers, or publish
the information, and/or make available the users’ details to law enforcement agencies.
Any one or more of the steps listed above, insofar as they are deemed necessary by FREDD
in its absolute and sole discretion, may be taken by FREDD against the
offending party. All cases of violation of the above Acceptable Use Policy should be
reported to abuse@FREDD.co.za.
