Your use of FibreOP Internet constitutes your agreement with this Acceptable Use Policy. The terms of this Acceptable Use Policy may change at any time and without prior notice; you are responsible for keeping yourself informed of any changes to this Acceptable Use Policy by periodically consulting this page. The FibreOP Internet account owner is responsible for any and all action that originates from his / her FibreOP Internet account.

If you have any questions about the FibreOP Internet Acceptable Use Policy, do not hesitate to contact Bell Aliant via e-mail abuse@bellaliant.net.

EXCESSIVE USE OF BANDWIDTH
Bell Aliant will take measures to address any customer's excessive use of bandwidth, which can negatively impact Bell Aliant's Internet or its users. Bandwidth usage is the amount of data sent and received through your Internet connection.

Bandwidth use is considered to be excessive when it significantly exceeds the usage characteristic of a typical residential user of the Service. This will be determined by Bell Aliant in its sole discretion.

Where a bandwidth cap is determined for a particular service, usage in excess of that cap will be deemed excessive, and Bell Aliant may charge its customers for bandwidth use above the cap at a rate determined by Bell Aliant or restrict usage.

If a customer's use is deemed to be excessive, Bell Aliant will make every effort to contact the customer and review the matter. However, where Bell Aliant, in its sole discretion, determines that the usage potentially impacts Bell Aliant's ability to provide its Internet Services or that its network resources need to be protected, it reserves the right to suspend or terminate service in response to a customer's excessive bandwidth use, without notice to the customer.

If the customer anticipates usage in excess of the typical residential user, the customer should inquire about the availability of dedicated service or other service options.

As a guideline, in our experience typical residential bandwidth usage tends to be well within the range of 250GB per month. Examples of Internet activities that can contribute to heavy bandwidth usage include downloading movies and streaming videos. For example, 250GB would be equivalent to approximately downloading 50,000 songs, or 570 1 hour TV shows, or 285 standard definition movies or 25 high definition movies.

Bandwidth Management

Bell Aliant reserves the right to monitor bandwidth, usage, transmissions, and content in order to identify violations of this Policy, protect the network and its users, manage the network and otherwise operate the service.

PROHIBITED USES of FibreOP Internet:

Criminal & Other Illegal Activity: You are prohibited from using your FibreOP Internet account, including Bell Aliant email, for any criminal or other illegal activity, such as the following:

• Communicating hatred
• Fraud
• Defamation & libel
• Obscenity
• Child pornography
• Harassment/stalking
• Uttering threats
• Copyright & intellectual property infringement

Other Disruptive Activity: You are prohibited from using your FibreOP Internet account, including Bell Aliant email, for any activity which disrupts the security of the network or the service, or otherwise harms other Internet users, including the following:

• Transmitting unsolicited messages or "spam" which causes significant disruption or elicits complaints from other Internet users.
• Harassing users or groups in any way.
• Impersonating another Internet user, or falsifying your identifying information.
• Invading or compromising the privacy of others.
• Bypassing network and computer security measures or copyright protection.
• Posting or transmitting any information or software which contains a virus, "cancelbot", "trojan horse", "worm" or other harmful or disruptive component.
• Disrupting of network service.
• Using your FibreOP Internet user account and concurrent dial up login sessions from the same FibreOP Internet user account.
• denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack).
• Running and/or hosting Server Applications including but not limited to HTTP, POP, SMTP, Proxy/SOCKS, NNTP, ).
• Analyzing or penetrating an Internet host's security mechanisms.
• Forging any part of the TCP/IP packet headers in any way.

Use Inconsistent with Nature of the Service: You are prohibited from using your FibreOP Internet account, including Bell Aliant email in a manner inconsistent with the nature of the service provided, including:

• Using residential services for business purposes.
• Sharing Internet connection outside of your home (either through a wired connection or through a Secure or unsecured Wireless connection)
• Reselling FibreOP Internet without permission.
• Excessive use of bandwidth (see further below).

Newsgroups and Discussion Forums: In addition to these Policies, while posting to newsgroups or any other discussion forum, you are prohibited from conducting activities that include, but are not limited to:

• Posting advertisements, commercial or unsolicited messages of any kind, unless expressly permitted by the charter or FAQ.
• Posting binary or excessively large files of any kind, unless expressly permitted by the charter or FAQ.
• Posting substantially identical messages to more than 5 newsgroups.
• Attaching an excessively long signature to your messages.
• Forging the headers of your postings in any way.

Newsgroup and forum postings must comply with the associated charter or FAQ. If a posted message does not fall within the topic or ideals of the discussion identified by the charter or FAQ, at the discretion of Bell Aliant, could represent an infraction of the FibreOP Internet Acceptable Use Policy. Users posting messages to newsgroups or forums are responsible for making themselves aware of the rules of conduct, prior to posting.

CONSEQUENCES:
For the protection of all customers, Bell Aliant must take violations of this policy seriously. Wherever possible, we will work with you to understand the nature of any potential violation and remedy the issue. However, it may be necessary to act quickly in order to protect our customers and our network. Bell Aliant reserves the right to act without notice when necessary, as determined by Bell Aliant in its sole discretion.

Bell Aliant may take responsive actions, such as:

• removal of offending material
• temporary or permanent filtering
• setting limits on the use of email
• blocking access
• suspending or terminating of service
• other action appropriate to the violation

In the event that numerous complaints are received by our staff in regards to any breaches of this Acceptable Use Policy, at the discretion of Bell Aliant, a processing fee per complaint received in addition to an administration fee may be applied to your account. Refunds or credits are not issued in connection with actions taken for violations of this Policy.

Violation of this Acceptable Use Policy may result in criminal and civil liability. Bell Aliant will offer full co-operation with law enforcement agencies if their investigation warrants it.

CONTACT US:

Complaints regarding violations of this Policy by an FibreOP Internet customer should be forwarded to abuse@bellaliant.net. Where possible, details should be included that would assist Bell Aliant in investigating and resolving the complaint (i.e. expanded headers and a copy of the offending transmission).