Open Internet Policy

HCC adopts this Open Internet Policy to promote the Internet as an open platform enabling customer choice, freedom of expression, end-user control, competition, and the freedom to innovate without permission.

HCC is a responsible and unbiased Internet Service Provider (ISP) whose policy is to keep its network and Internet access as open as safely possible. HCC only applies access control or content restrictions where network security is being compromised or exploited, or illegal activity has been reasonably suspected and documented.

A few examples where HCC may restrict Internet access are:

1) A cyber attack against an HCC network or HCC customer, we block the offending IP address and contact the administrator of that system. After a reasonable amount of time with no further issues we once again allow that address to have access to our networks.

2) When we receive a copyright complaint from a legitimate entity, such as Warner Bros., where they have the documented date, time, IP address, and title of infringed work. In cases like this we limit the customer’s speed to hinder illegal file sharing. Once we have contacted the customer and discussed the seriousness of copyright violations, the speeds are returned to normal.

3) Any type of known illegal activity or known consumer fraud, such as child pornography or attempts to trick unwary users out of personal information or money. Such activity is documented, and depending on the situation, may be forwarded to local authorities for further action.

4) Any type of known virus we detect that is entering or leaving our system.

5) Certain ports and protocols that are extremely vulnerable to hacker attacks and should not be available to the open Internet, such as Microsoft local area network protocols and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).

No Unreasonable Discrimination: HCC does not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic over a customer’s broadband Internet access service, subject to reasonable network management. Reasonable network management practices are set out below.

HCC does not:

Discriminate among specific uses, or class of uses, of its network
Impair, degrade or delay VoIP applications or services that compete with its voice services or those of its affiliates
Impair, degrade, delay or otherwise inhibit access by customers to lawful content, applications, services or non-harmful devices
Impair free expression by actions such as slowing traffic from particular web sites or blogs
Demand pay-for-priority or similar arrangements that directly or indirectly favor some traffic over other traffic
Prioritize its own application, services or devices or those of its affiliates
Block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices, subject to reasonable network management. Network management practices are set forth below.

Use of Network: In no case will HCC discriminate among customers on the basis of the type of content, applications, services or devices which the customer uses.

Network Management Practices

General: HCC uses a variety of network management tools including monitors, filters, and blacklists to protect its network, records, and users. These tools may include identifying suspected spam and preventing its delivery to customer email accounts, and detecting and blocking malicious Internet traffic such as security attacks, malware, phishing, viruses, or other harmful or illegal content. However, HCC cannot and does not guarantee that
it can prevent spam or other malicious Internet content from reaching the customer.

Congestion: HCC has not experienced substantial problems with congestion. However, there is the potential for congestion events to occur in the future, particularly as it relates to the service capacity of equipment or third party services used by HCC to provide the customer with access to the Internet.

Where feasible, HCC will address congestion issues through improvements to its network and/or increased capacity purchased from other providers. Such processes take time to implement and may not be feasible in all situations. Therefore, HCC reserves the right to monitor and identify which customer accounts are using the greatest amount of bandwidth and to work to provide solutions to address those issues, including but not limited to data overage charges based on industry standards.

Applications and Devices

Applications: Customers may use any lawful and commercially available application which they desire. HCC does not normally monitor the contents of the traffic or applications of the customers and undertakes no obligation to monitor or investigate the lawfulness of any specific application used by a customer. HCC will take steps regarding an application-specific behavior by a customer if there is a reasonable belief that the application will cause harm to HCC’s network or is unlawful.

Devices: A customer may use any lawful, compatible type-accepted and commercially available device which they desire on the network provided by HCC, as long as such device does not harm the network and is not unlawful.

Security

Security: While we do provide some filters, HCC undertakes no obligation to monitor or protect customer traffic from spam, viruses, denial of service attacks or other malicious, unlawful or unwarranted activities. HCC does not guarantee that it can protect customers from any or all security breaches or that its filters will work to protect the customer. The customer is using this service at its own risk. Customers are cautioned to purchase their own spam filtering, ransomware and antivirus software from commercial vendors to meet their needs. However, a customer that is subject to spam, ransomware, virus, denial of service attack or similar malicious, unlawful or unwarranted activities is urged to contact HCC as soon as possible. HCC will work with the customer on how the customer can take appropriate and economically reasonable efforts to address the matter.

Terms and Conditions

Other Matters: Terms and conditions for use are found in HCC’s Internet Service Agreement at https://www.hcc.net/legal/tos/ and the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) at https://www.hcc.net/legal/internet-terms-of-service/. The terms and conditions of the Internet Service Agreement and the AUP control to the extent there is any inconsistency with this Policy.

Performance Characteristics

The pricing and other terms and conditions for the service provided by HCC can be found at https://www.hcc.net/residential/internet/. The service provided depends on the customer’s location and may be cable modem provided over fiber and coaxial cable or a DSL type of service consisting of fiber optic and copper digital facilities. Expected access download speeds in the DSL portions of the network are 6 mbps and 1 mbps upload speed, depending on the actual lengths of the respective fiber trunks and copper lines. The expected access speeds in the cable modem portions of the network range from 25 mbps to 50 mbps download speeds and 3 mbps to 20 mbps upload speeds depending on the level of service the customer has purchased. The expected speeds on the fiber-to-the-home portion of the network range from 10 mbps to 1,000 mbps download speeds and 1 mbps to 1,000 mbps upload speed depending on the package chosen by the customer. Latency is not a significant issue with any of the packages offered by HCC.

However, actual access speeds and delay times or latency are impacted by the length, capacity and congestion of transport facilities purchased by HCC from third party providers. HCC cannot guarantee that it will be able to obtain capacity from these third party providers at commercially reasonable prices if and when additional third party capacity is needed to reach Internet nodes.

HCC’s ability to deliver the speeds set forth above may be affected by significant use of specialized services such as Internet-based video services. This is a growing area and its effect on HCC’s ability to provide service at the speeds listed above are unknown at this time.

Subject to network management considerations, HCC does not impose data caps.

Privacy

As a general statement, HCC does not usually entail inspection of network traffic. HCC does retain and store certain traffic information for time periods required by federal and state law, including, but not limited to, the identity of the customer using a particular IP address during a specific period of time. HCC does assist law enforcement and provides traffic information that it may have available to it when requested pursuant to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and other applicable national and state security and criminal statutes.

HCC DOES NOT COLLECT, STORE OR USE TRAFFIC INFORMATION TO PROFILE ITS CUSTOMERS IN ORDER TO SELL ADDITIONAL SERVICES TO THEM OR FOR NON-NETWORK MANAGEMENT PURPOSES.

Complaints

If a customer has complaints about the service, they are urged to contact [email protected]. A customer always has the right to file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission at www.fcc.gov. If you feel you are a victim of identity theft, you should contact the Federal Trade Commission at IdentityTheft.gov.

Reservations of Rights/Amendments

In the event of any conflict between material found on other links on HCC’s web site and this Open Internet Policy, the more specific terms at the other links shall control.

HCC may modify this Policy and other policies it has linked for the customer from time to time at its discretion. Notice of such changes will be posted on this web site. However, individual notice to customers, content providers, application providers, service providers or device providers by any means whatsoever shall not be provided unless specifically required to by federal or state law. Notice of changes will be provided in advance normally upon a thirty day basis. However, HCC reserves the right to use a shorter notice period when circumstances so warrant.

Legal

Open Internet Policy