Rapid Systems, Inc. (“we” or “our”) provides the following disclosure regarding our network management practices, the performance and commercial terms of our broadband Internet access service. This disclosure is provided to all 1) customers to make informed choices regarding their use of our services and for content, application, service and 2) to all device providers to develop, market and maintain Internet offerings.
Our Service and Performance
We use a variety of technologies to deliver broadband Internet access service to customers such as Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), fiber-to-the-home systems and both licensed and unlicensed spectrum. Wireless service technologies include WiMax, 802.11n, canopy and other technologies. In particular, unlicensed spectrum such as ours is shared among multiple users and technologies, and no single user can control or assure access to the spectrum. We also offer dial-up Internet access and other services that do not constitute broadband Internet access service; this statement does not apply to such services.
Based on internal testing, a user’s expected and actual access speed and latency will vary based on network conditions, congestion, other users on the network, the number of devices attached to an access point and other factors. Maximum speeds will be limited by factors these factors and as described elsewhere in this statement. We use special software to test speeds at our access sites, and we use speed test hosting for our customers. In particular, our customers have tools available either through the public internet or internally so that at any time they can test bandwidth, throughput and other metrics of their service. While we cannot guarantee minimum speeds to any customers for the reasons described above, we believe that only occasional high-congestion episodes (for example, in the time shortly following major national news events) are sufficient to slow a customer’s service in a reasonably noticeable way. We try to optimize the service at installation by only installing to customers who exceed our minimum service metrics. Most of our packages are suitable for real-time services, although on our most basic service tiers (i.e., those meant for the most basic services rather than real-time) we don’t support real time video. More information about the speeds of our services appears in our terms of service.
We offer end users, through a wholesale agreement, VoIP as a specialized service. In the future, we reserve the right to provide IP-delivered video. Such services may affect the amount of last-mile capacity available for and the performance of broadband Internet access service because we prioritize it for QofS reasons, but we expect the impact on the end user’s performance to be minimal most of the time.
Congestion Management Practices
Providing quality broadband service requires that we take steps to provide reasonable management of our network(s). Subject to reasonable network management, we do not block lawful content, applications, services or non-harmful devices, nor do we unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic over a consumer’s broadband Internet access subject to our reasonable network management.
The purposes for such management are to optimize our networks and to promote quality of service.
At present, we do not have in place practices designed to reduce or eliminate congestion on our networks, but we do have practices to optimize our networks. For example, multiple users share upstream and downstream bandwidth on our networks. We set quality of service (QofS) for purposes of facilitating real-time protocols over our networks, but not specifically for congestion management. Specifically services such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and real-time video require us to apply additional QofS to manage jitter and latency. These services are bandwidth-intensive and such optimization is necessary for our customers to uses these services without unacceptable glitches and delays. In addition, as described below, we have network tools that drop data speeds when anomalous traffic is detected that suggests a potential threat of malicious activities such as hacking and denial-of-service attacks. In addition, if a customer’s use consumes excessive bandwidth, we may contact that customer to require the customer to cease these activities or upgrade to a higher-tier service type. Such actions are set forth in our terms of service and in particular targets practices such as use of compromised computers or excessive use of peer-to-peer software.
Otherwise, we do not address application-specific behavior in our network practices. We do not block and/or rate control protocols or protocol ports for customers of our broadband Internet access services, although we block some ports on our internal servers for internal use. Except as described elsewhere in this statement, we do not inhibit or favor certain applications or classes of applications.
We pride ourselves on using open standards. Accordingly, we have no restrictions on the types of devices and any approval procedures for devices to connect to our network.
With respect to security for end users and our networks, we regularly monitor our networks to detect potential malicious traffic. Our security engines on our networks will slow data transfers to/from customers if these tools recognize patterns consistent with denial-of-service attacks, hacking and other malicious activities. Moreover, we physically secure our data centers in locked cabinets in collocations spaces and provide multiple layers of physical security for our networks. Our terms of use also prohibit customers from engaging in certain practices that would harm network security, such as transmitting mass unsolicited email, security breaches, denial-of-service attacks, falsifying addressing information or modifying headers to conceal the sender’s or recipient’s identity, using our service for unlawful conduct, using programs that interfere with others’ use (including Internet Relay Chats or servers) and maintaining open mail relays (which often re exploited for unsolicited commercial email). We strongly encourage our customers to take proper precautions to secure their machine to avoid security breaches and abuse.
Commerical Terms
Information about our pricing terms for broadband Internet access services is available here: wireless (business or residential customers) and DSL (business or residential customers). Not all plans are available in all service areas. In some instances, we offer custom packages for businesses, and we price these services on a case-by-case basis: We have no usage-based fees for broadband Internet access services. Depending on the particular service contract, we may charge fees to customers for early termination. We also charge fees for a variety of additional network services (for example, web hosting, static IPs, dedicated servicers, forward and reverse DNS pointing, platforms and virtualization), and our website describes these services and the associated fees.
Our service involves the inspection of network traffic to a limited extent. For example, we have troubleshooting applications to inspect and quantify network traffic for purposes of optimization. In addition, we have regular inspections by our technical support personnel. Traffic information is neither stored nor provided to third parties unless required by law, and we don’t use this information for purposes other than network management.
If you have questions or complaints about our service, you can reach us in a variety of ways, as described on the support section of our website. Our support includes telephonic help desk support, email support and real-time online support. We offer general support during our regular business hours and emergency support s well. We attempt to resolve support issues in 24 hours or less for basic service and in less than four-hours for service-level agreement customers. Edge providers and others may also contact us using the methods described on the support section of our website.
We reserve the right to make changes to our Open Internet policies. These changes will take effect when posted on our website.
Last modified: November 30, 2011
Copyright 2008 Rapid Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
1211 N Westshore Blvd | Tampa, FL 33607
