Network Management Policy
HARGRAY FAMILY OF COMPANIES NETWORK MANAGEMENT POLICY
Hargray Telephone Company, Hargray of Georgia, Hargray Inc., Hargray of Alabama and Bluffton Telephone Company (“Hargray” or “Company”) provide this Policy in order to disclose network management practices in accordance with the FCC’s Open Internet Rules. Additional information about Hargray’s other policies and practices concerning broadband service is also available under the Legal Notice section of the website.
Hargray manages its network to ensure that all of its customers experience a safe and secure broadband Internet environment that is fast, reliable, and affordable. Hargray wants its customers to indulge in all the Internet has to offer, whether it is social networking, streaming videos and music, or communicating through email and video conferencing.
Hargray manages its network for a number of reasons, including optimization, as well as congestion — and security protocol management. Such practices are consistent with reasonable network management actions and are intended to improve the overall performance for customers.
Hargray’s Network Management Practices
Hargray uses various tools and industry-standard techniques to manage its network and deliver fast, secure, and reliable Internet service. Such management tools and practices include the following:
I. Managing Congestion
Hargray periodically monitors the connections on its network in the aggregate to determine the rate of utilization. Hargray manages it local network and its backbone network to provide the most economical service with the highest quality. In its backbone network, Hargray strives for a non-blocking Internet architecture. The network has redundant facilities on separate links. If either link fails, traffic is routed to the other link. Hargray adds capacity to its network before utilization on either link reaches full capacity. Hargray engineers the local facilities to fully meet the customer’s traffic requirements. Capacity on these links is also increased when congestion is found either by monitoring, projections, or customer input. Hargray may increase capacity by adding optical nodes, coax nodes, upgrading cable modem system to DOCSIS 3 or DOCSIS 3.1, upgrading to VDSL, and adding transport, Internet aggregation routers, and bandwidth, as needed.
On Hargray’s network, all customers have access to all legal services, applications, and content online and, in the unlikely 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 occur on Hargray’s network.
Customers using conduct that abuses or threatens the Hargray 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.
Hargray’s network and congestion management practices are “application-agnostic,” based on current network conditions, and are not implemented on the basis of customers’ online activities, protocols, or applications. Hargray’s network management practices do not relate to any particular customer’s aggregate monthly data usage. Hargray does not prioritize or discriminate against any applications or protocols except for specialized networks.
II. Network Security
Hargray 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 providing resources to its customers for identifying and reporting such threats as spam, viruses, firewall issues, and phishing schemes. Hargray also deploys spam filters in order to divert spam from an online customer’s email inbox while allowing the customer to control which emails are identified as spam. Spam is quarantined in a separate file that the customer may access.
As its normal practice, Hargray does not block any protocols, content, or traffic for purposes of network management except that the company 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. Hargray does filter ports to reduce the spread of computer-related viruses and protect your computer from intruder access. If Hargray suspects traffic originated by its customers is virus related, Hargray will contact the suspected party. If there is no response, the customer’s service will be suspended until the issue can be resolved.
Hargray does not currently engage in any application-specific behaviors in its network, except as may be listed in the Specialized Service section of this policy.
III. Monitoring Schedule
Hargray monitors the network for performance and provides performance upgrades regularly. In the backbone network, alarms or alerts are generated if the performance is degraded. In addition, traffic is analyzed and trended to ensure peak performance. Hargray adds capacity or reroutes traffic to relieve congestion when identified. Hargray also uses industry-standard software tools to check for abnormal traffic flows, network security breaches, malware, loss, and damage to the network. If a breach is detected or high-volume users are brought to light by complaint, Hargray provides notification to the customer via email or phone. If a violation of Hargray’s policies has occurred and such violation is not remedied, Hargray will seek to suspend or terminate that customer’s service.
IV. Network Management Technology
Hargray employs a variety of industry-standard tools, applications and devices to monitor, secure and maintain its network, including the following:
- Network graphing solutions
- Latency measurement software
- Bandwidth and performance measurement platforms (including TR069).
V. Service Descriptions
Hargray offers broadband service over cable modem, ADSL, VDSL, FTTH facilities, direct fiber optic facilities and leased transport. Hargray offers speeds ranging from 1.5 Mbps to 1000 Mbps for residential customers and 1 Mbps to 10000 Mbps for business. Service offerings are detailed under the “For Your Home” and “For Your Business” navigation tabs on the website. All of Hargray’s broadband service is capable of supporting real-time applications.
VI. Network Performance
Hargray broadband services are best-effort performance. Hargray 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 issues that are caused by Hargray’s network. Hargray measures availability, latency, and aggregate utilization on the network and strives to meet internal service level targets in its network. However, the customer’s performance is also affected by the particular website being accessed, capacity in the public Internet beyond the Hargray network, and the customer’s computer, inside wiring, wireless router, local interference and other customer equipment.
Customers can test their actual speeds using the speed test found on the company website.
VI. Specialized Services
Hargray provides Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) services to end-users using virtual private network architecture. This service, also known as a specialized service, is separated from the company’s best-effort Internet services on the local network. Specialized service traffic is shared and prioritized higher than best-effort broadband traffic in the network core. Hargray does add capacity to support both specialized service and best-effort services if congestion is detected.
VII. Device Attachment Rules
Hargray provides DSL and cable modems as part of the broadband service. The customer may attach any industry-standard device beyond the DSL or cable modem. However, such devices must support PPPoE. If Hargray discovers a customer device is harmful to its network, Hargray has the right to request that the customer remove such device.
VIII. Other Notices
In addition to this Network Management Policy, customers may also find other notices as follows:
For questions, complaints, or requests for additional information, please contact Hargray at 877.HARGRAY (877.427.4729).