Nemont TELEPHONE COOPERATIVE, INC.

Network TRANSPARENCY statement

 

Nemont Telephone Cooperative, Inc. (“Nemont” or “Company”) provides this Network Transparency Statement in accordance with the FCC’s Restore Internet Freedom Rules to ensure that you have sufficient information to make informed choices about the purchase of broadband services.  Information about Nemont’s other policies and practices concerning broadband are available at www.nemont.com(“NemontWebsite”). 

 

Nemont engages in network management practices that are tailored and appropriate for achieving optimization on the network considering the particular network architecture and technology of its broadband Internet access service.  Nemont’s goal is to ensure that all its customers experience a safe and secure broadband Internet environment that is fast, reliable and affordable.  Nemont wants its customers to indulge in all that the Internet has to offer, whether it is social networking, streaming videos and music, to communicating through email and videoconferencing. 

 

Nemont will not unjustly or unreasonably prevent or interfere with competition among Content, Applications, Service, or Device Providers.

 

Nemont’s network management includes congestion- and security-protocol-management and customers generally will not be impacted by the protocols and practices that Nemontuses to manage its network. 

 

1. Nemont’s Network Transparency Disclosures

 

Nemont uses various tools and industry standard techniques to manage its network and deliver fast, secure and reliable Internet service.  Nemontbelieves in full transparency andprovides the following disclosures about its network management practices:

 

 

1. Blocking: Nemontdoes not block or discriminate against lawful content.

 

2. Throttling: Nemontdoes not throttle, impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic.

 

3. Affiliated Prioritization: Nemontdoes notprioritize Internet traffic and has no plans to do so.

 

4. Paid Prioritization: Nemonthas never engaged in paid prioritization. We don’t prioritize Internet for consideration to benefit particular content, applications, services or devices. Nemont does not have plans to enter into paid prioritization deals to create fast lanes.

 

5. Congestion Management: Nemont monitors the connections on its network in the aggregate on a continuous basis to determine the rate of utilization. If congestion emerges on the network, Nemont will take the appropriate measures to relieve congestion. 

 

On Nemont’s network, all customers have access to all legal services, applications and content online and, in the event of congestion, most Internet activities will be unaffected.  Some customers, however, may experience longer download or upload times, or slower surf speeds on the web if instances of congestion do occur on Nemont’s network. 

 

Customers using conduct that abuses or threatens the Nemont network or which violates the company’s Acceptable Use Policy, Internet service Terms and Conditions, or the Internet Service Agreement will be asked to stop any such use immediately.  A failure to respond or to cease any such conduct could result in service suspension or termination. 

 

Nemont’s network and congestion management practices are ‘application-agnostic’, based on current network conditions, and are not implemented based on customers’ online activities, protocols or applications. Nemont’s network management practices do not relate to any particular customer’s aggregate monthly data usage.

 

Nemont monitors its network on a continuous basis to determine utilization on its network.  Nemont also checks for abnormal traffic flows, network securitybreaches, malware, loss, and damage to the network. If a breach is detected or high-volume users are brought to light by complaint, Nemont provides notification to the customer via email or phone.  If a violation of Nemont’s policies has occurred and such violation is not remedied, Nemont will seek to suspend or terminate that customer’s service. 

 

 

6. Application-Specific Behavior: Except as may be provided elsewhere herein, Nemont does not currently engage in any application-specific behaviors on its network.Customers may use any lawful applications with Nemont.

 

7. Device Attachment Rules: For best results, DSL modems, wireless modems, or other proprietary network gateways used on the Nemont broadband network should be provided by Nemont. Customers may attach devices of their choosing to their modems, including wired or wireless routers, laptops, desktop computers, video game systems, televisions, or other network-enabled electronics equipment. However, customers are responsible for ensuring that their equipment does not harm Nemont’s network or impair the service of other customers. Nemont is not responsible for the functionality or compatibility of any equipment provided by its customers. Customers are responsible for securing their own equipment to prevent unauthorized access to Nemont’s broadband network by third parties and will be held responsible for the actions of such third parties who gain unauthorized access through unsecured customer equipment.

 

8. Network Security: Nemont knows the importance of securing its network and customers from network threats and annoyances. The company promotes the security of its network and patrons by protections from such threats as spam, viruses, firewall issues, and phishing schemes.  Nemont also deploys spam filters in order to divert spam from an online customer’s email inbox into a quarantine file while allowing the customer to control which emails are identified as spam.  Customers may access the spam files through the email.  Spam files are automatically deleted if not accessed within 30 days or 10,240 KB whatever comes first.

 

As its normal practice, Nemont does not block any protocols, content or traffic for purposes of network management, but Nemont may block or limit such traffic as spam, viruses, malware, or denial of service attacks to protect network integrity and the security of our customers. 

 

 

1. Network Performance

 

1. Service Descriptions

 

Nemont serves a large geographic area that is sporadically populated. Because of this, every area within Nemont’s service territory does not receive the same technology or service. All internet services sold are sold as best effort. Obtainability of specific technology is dependent on the geographic location of the customer and the correlation to the location of the deployed facilities. Nemont’s variety of facilities deployed throughout the service area prevents an illustration of service availability in a specific area; however, detailed information is available about choices for technologies and services by contacting Nemont at 1-800-636-6680, on our website at www.nemont.com or by email at nemont@nemont.coop.

 

2. Network Performance

 

Nemont makes every effort to support advertised speeds and will dispatch repair technicians to customer sites to perform speed tests as needed to troubleshoot and resolve speed and application performance caused by Nemont’snetwork.  Nemont measures availability, latency, and aggregate utilization on the network and strives to meet internal service level targets. 

 

However, the bandwidth speed at which a particular distant website or other Internet resources may be downloaded, or the speed at which your customer information may be uploaded to a distant website or Internet location is affected by factors beyond Nemont’s control, including the speed of the connection from a distant web server to the Internet, congestion on intermediate networks, and/or limitations on your own computer equipment, including a wireless router.  In addition, your service performance may be affected by the inside wiring at your premise. Accordingly, you, the customer, must consider the capabilities of your own equipment when choosing a Nemont broadband service. Your computers and/or wireless or other networks in your homes or offices may need an upgrade in order to take full advantage of the chosen Nemontbroadband plan.

 

For the wireless service, Nemont measures Bit Error Rate (BER) and the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) parameters for transmission rates, latency, and traffic every 15 min.  For DSL, Fiber and T1 service, Nemont measures traffic every 5 min.  All services are best effort. 

 

Nemont tests each service for actual and expected access speeds at the time of network installation to demonstrate that the service is capable of supporting the advertised speed. 

Customers may also test their actual speeds using the speed test located at https://www.nemont.com/services/internet/internet-speed-test/and may request assistance by calling our business office at 1-800-636-6680 or by email at nemont@nemont.coop. 

 

Based on the network information Nemont receives from its monitoring efforts, Nemont’snetwork is delivering data transmission rates advertised for the different high-speed Internet services. To be sure, Nemont is implementing a program of testing the performance of its network by using a test protocol similar to the one sanctioned by the FCC.  We will be installing specific network performance monitoring equipment at aggregation points across our network and will conduct a series of tests using this equipment.

 

3. Impact of Non-BIAS Data Services

 

The FCC has defined two types of broadband services: Broadband Internet Access Service (“BIAS”) and Non-Broadband Internet Access Service (“Non-BIAS”) service.  BIAS is a mass-market retail service by wire or radio that provides the capability to transmit data to and receive data from all, or substantially all, Internet endpoints. Non-BIAS services include servicesoffering connectivity to one or a small number of Internet endpoints for a particular device (i.e. heart monitors) or don’t provide access to the internet at all.  Non-BIAS (previously known as “Specialized Services”) may share capacity with BIAS over the last-mile facilities. If both are offered, they may compete for bandwidth in the last mile.

Real time services, such as Non-BIAS, include Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Internet Protocol (IP) video services, command optimal bandwidth.  As Non-BIAS traffic is combined with general Internet traffic on Nemont’s network, broadband customers could experience service delays, although very unlikely, if there is an occurrence of congestion on Nemont’s network. In any such event, the Non-BIAS traffic is given priority over general Internet traffic.

Nemont provides Voice-over-the-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) to its fixed wireless customers.  The VoIP traffic uses private RFC 1918 addresses, dedicated paths for VoIP and QoS on the routers/switches it touches.  The QoS priority is based on the source and destination IP.  Where VoIP traffic is combined with best effort Internet traffic and QoS priority is employed, the network could endure marginal delays if there are instances of bandwidth contention, although very unlikely. 

The Company offers IP video service to some end-users. This non-BIAS data service does not adversely affect the last-mile capacity available for the Company’s broadband Internet access services, or the performance of such services. Customer should note that significantly heavier use of non-BIAS services (particularly IP video services) may impact the available capacity for and/or the performance of its broadband Internet access services. The Company will monitor this situation and appreciates feedback from its customers.

 

C.Commercial Terms

 

Pricing and additional service information may be found here.

 

In addition to this Network Transparency Statement, patrons may also find links to the following on the Nemont Website:

 

• Privacy Policy
• Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQs”)
• Acceptable Use Policy

 

For questions, complaints or requests for additional information, please contact Nemont at:

 

Business Office at 1-800-636-6680

Email at nemont@nemont.coop