Network Management Disclosure

Network Management

The bandwidth and network resources used to deliver our Internet access service are limited and shared among users. While we strive to provide sufficient bandwidth to meet the foreseeable needs of our customers, our network may be negatively affected by the rapidly increasing demands of users whose actions strain the ability of the Internet to meet that demand. Conscious of this, the FCC allows Internet access service providers such as Sparklight to engage in "reasonable network management practices" to respond to situations such as network congestion or excessive users.

Consistent with the FCC's rules, Sparklight reserves the right to employ the types of "reasonable network management" tools and techniques that are commonly used in the industry to protect consumers from activity that can unreasonably burden our network and may cause service degradation, including security attacks and network congestion. The use of certain network management tools and techniques may affect users' Internet performance, such as download and upload times or response times while surfing the Internet or playing games. The effects of network management typically will be noticeable only for a brief period of time, if at all.

Network management tools and techniques may include detecting malicious traffic patterns and preventing the distribution of viruses or other malicious code, limiting the number of sessions a user can conduct at the same time, limiting the aggregate bandwidth available for certain usage protocols, regulating the delivery speed of mass emails, rejection or removal of "spam" or otherwise unsolicited bulk email, detecting and preventing the distribution of viruses and other malware, port blocking, measuring subscriber bandwidth usage, bandwidth allowances, traffic prioritization and other tools and techniques as Sparklight may from time to time determine are appropriate. New network management techniques are being developed on an ongoing basis to address evolving challenges and threats to the network and users, and Sparklight may elect to use some or all available network management techniques on a temporary or as-needed basis. Network management tools and techniques may also be employed to allow Sparklight to comply with various legal requirements, including, but not limited to, providing proper assistance to law enforcement, national security, emergency response and disaster relief agencies.

The network management tools and techniques employed by Sparklight do not target specific usages or applications and instead focus in a content-neutral manner on bandwidth usage in real time, with the goal of providing reasonable and equitable access to the network for all similarly situated customers. In other words, to the extent that the use of network management practices may affect the performance or other characteristics of Internet service, they are designed to affect all similarly situated customers equally.

Usage Limits

In addition to reserving the right to manage network usage to ensure that the activity of a small number of users at a particular point in time does not degrade, inhibit or interfere with the use of our network by others, Sparklight also maintains an "excessive use" policy that addresses total usage of an account in a month.

Please see our AUP at http://www.sparklight.com/legal/internet-aup for more information regarding Sparklight's excessive use policy.

Application Specific Behavior

Sparklight does not discriminate against or prevent you or other users of its service from sending and receiving the lawful content of their choice; running lawful applications and using lawful services of their choice; or connecting their choice of legal devices, provided that such applications and services do not harm the network or the provision of broadband Internet access service, cause malicious traffic patterns facilitate theft of service or the distribution of unlawful content, or otherwise harm or unreasonably impair other users of the service. Similarly, Sparklight does not impair or degrade particular content, applications, services or non-harmful devices so as to render them effectively unusable, subject to the policies and procedures outlined herein.

As described above, Sparklight reserves the right to employ network management practices, e.g., to prevent the distribution of viruses or other malicious code, as well as to block, in accordance with applicable law, transfer of unlawful content such as child pornography or the unlawful transfer of content. As such, Sparklight blocks ports 135, 136, 137, 138, 139 & 448. SMTP Port 25 is restricted to Sparklight Mail servers for residential customers. In addition, Sparklight may enter into arrangements to provide Internet service to third party establishments (such as coffee shops, bookstores, hotels or libraries) who then may offer such service to their customers, guests or others. Nothing herein is intended to address network management practices, performance characteristics or commercial terms that may be adopted by such third party premise operators in connection with the provision of Internet service to others.

Device Attachment Rules

Sparklight requires customers to use a modem model to connect to its network that Sparklight's research has indicated is compatible with its equipment and services. Use of a non-approved modem may be subject to service interruption due to network updates or incompatibility. A DOCSIS 3.1 or higher modem is required to receive nearly all of Sparklight's speed offerings (8 channel or higher version works best). Although DOCSIS 3.1 modems will operate on our network at this time, customers may experience substantially slower speeds than advertised. Information regarding approved modem models can be found at https://support.sparklight.com/hc/en-us/articles/115009158227-Which-Cable-Modems-are-Supported-. or by contacting our customer service center at 877-692-2253. The pace of technological change is rapid and due to customer demand and other advancements, modem models previously compatible may become obsolete. Sparklight may require customers to replace a non-approved or previously approved modem model with an approved one and reserves the right to discontinue provision of service to any non-approved modem . Customer may choose to lease a modem from Sparklight or purchase an approved model from a retailer.

Security

Sparklight also employs certain practices to protect the security of our customers and our network from unwanted and harmful activities. These include practices designed to protect our servers against Denial of Service attacks and to prevent spam and identity theft. For more information, see https://support.sparklight.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010466167-Antivirus-Information.

General Spam Filtering

Inbound filtering for Sparklight email is done via Gmail provided by Google. Google will block email from any source that exceeds its thresholds for email that is sent using identified spam methods. This includes but is not limited to numbers of recipients, number of rejected users and certain header information. These thresholds are dynamic and more data cannot be given without compromising the integrity of our filtering methods.

More information on Spam can be found on the sparklight.com Help Page:https://support.sparklight.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010183887-Spam-Info

When security measures are employed, they may affect performance characteristics of service or the ability to access certain websites, but such measures are employed in a manner designed to have non-discriminatory impact on all similarly-situated customers. Sparklight engages in network security measures such as those outlined above to enhance the online experience of its customers. However, no such measures are infallible and we cannot guarantee against security problems.

There are many factors affecting speed and latency. Customers may wish to conduct their own test. Speed tests are available at https://support.sparklight.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010349927 and http://www.speedtest.net/.