Home user - telephone Terms and Conditions

Home user - broadband Terms and Conditions

Fair Usage

28 day rolling agreement for Home Users

Home Users Terms & Conditions

1. SERVICE
This agreement covers the provision by Utilities UK Ltd t/a Direct Save Telecom (DST) to you of our telecommunication services. We may vary how these services are provided if we wish to maintain or improve their quality or need to comply with any law or regulation. You agree to be bound by these terms and conditions as varied if you decide to use the services after the amendments.

2. TERM
The minimum term of this agreement is the “Minimum Period” as specified on the agreement, and will be automatically renewed on an on-going basis thereafter unless and until either of us gives the other written notice of termination with at least 28 days notice.
You acknowledge that in order to avoid delays occurring in the ordering process, DST will need to be notified by BT of any products or services presently in use on your line that are incompatible with the Calls and Access service. BT is under a strict duty not to disclose information about a customer's telephone services to a third party unless the customer has consented to such disclosure. In entering this agreement you give consent to BT to disclose such information to DST. You also give DST authority to act as your agent to arrange connection onto DST services.
The agreement may be ended immediately by you if we break a term of this agreement, which after written notice has not been rectified within 14 days, or if the other stops trading or becomes insolvent or wound up. We may end this agreement without giving you notice if you break any of your obligations under clause 5 which have not been rectified 14 days following receipt of written notice of breach from us.
On termination of this agreement for whatever reason, you will:
a. immediately pay any outstanding invoices; and
b. be responsible for any required engineering reprogramming costs for you to use an alternative supplier.
In addition, if the agreement is terminated prior to the end of the period specified in the agreement (except if you terminate, in accordance with the provisions of this agreement, as a result of our breach or insolvency or winding up), you will:
c. reimburse DST for any costs incurred in transferring to the DST service; and
d. pay us (in addition to clauses 2a and 2b) an administration charge of £19.50 if you fail to give DST 28 days prior written notice of your cancellation.
e. DST will waive the administration fee of £19.50 where you have given DST 28 days prior written notice of your cancellation.
f. Should you leave the Broadband service within the first 12 months you agree to pay DST a disconnection fee of £50.00
g. Pay us (where you have accepted our new telephone line Installation reduced price offer) a compensation charge. The compensation charge will be £49.50 plus 25% of the average monthly amount for each month (or part) until the expiration of the Minimum Period from the date of termination until the earliest time this agreement could have been validly terminated under the first paragraph of this clause 2.

3. PAYMENT TERMS
a. monthly variable direct debit is the only means of payment of DST invoices and DST reserves the right to refuse customers not wishing to pay by direct debit.
b. you will be notified of any problems with your payments or direct debit instruction. Arrears and/or unwillingness to maintain payment by direct debit may result in your lines being restricted.
c. DST reserves the right to apply charges for late payment and any associated charges incurred.
d. cancellation of the direct debit does not constitute notice of cancellation of the agreement.
e. you are protected at all times by the direct debit guarantee.

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4. PRICES
DST charges you for using the services covered by this agreement. Initially you are charged at the tariff specified on the agreement or published in our price lists. Please note:
a. any connection or set up charges are non-refundable;
b. charges are calculated from data recorded by us and not from your own records;
c. where a direct debit is unpaid due to insufficient funds or cancellation, a £14.99 administration charge will be included on your next monthly bill.
d. All invoices are due for payment by the due date as indicated on our invoices. Any invoice outstanding beyond this period will be referred to our debt collection agency and will be subject to a surcharge of 15% plus vat to cover the collection costs incurred. This surcharge together with all other charges and legal fees incurred will be the responsibility of the customer and will be legally enforceable.
We may change our prices (upwards as well as downwards) but will endeavour to inform you at least 14 days in advance of any change we are making. Unless we advise otherwise our charges are subject to VAT at the prevailing rate, which you must pay in addition.

5. PRICE PROMISE
If, during the Minimum Period of this agreement, we increase our prices you may end this agreement without paying the administration charge specified in clause 2d and the new prices will not apply to you.
If, during any automatically renewed Period after the Minimum Period of this agreement, you are offered cheaper local, national or international call prices by an alternative supplier, DST reserves the right to match these prices for the remainder (if any) of the renewed Period. If we do not do so, you may end the agreement, subject to clauses 2a and 2b, but without payment of any administration charge.
This clause relates only to alternative suppliers offering exactly comparable quality of products and services (including but not restricted to carrier quality and direct and indirect switching methods and procedures) to those offered by DST.

6. RESPONSIBILITIES
We agree to provide you with the service as specified on the agreement subject to the provisions of these terms and conditions. You agree:
a. to use the services in accordance with this agreement, any instructions given by us from time to time and any laws, regulations and licenses which apply to the use by you of the services;
b. not to allow an alternative supplier to override or bypass our service either through the installation of equipment or through the BT local exchange;
c. to be responsible for any engineering reprogramming costs or equipment removal costs that may be required to terminate the service of any previous supplier;
d. not to use the service to transmit any material which may be abusive, offensive, obscene, indecent, menacing, defamatory or which might cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to anyone or to commit a fraud or other criminal offence; and
e. not to re-supply or re-sell or otherwise make services available to any person on an arms-length commercial basis and not to use the service in any way or for any purposes prohibited by law.

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7. SUSPENSION
We may suspend the service (without being liable to compensate you):
a. in the event of a local or national emergency;
b. to comply with a request from a government or other competent authority;
c. to protect or provide service to rescue or other essential services or otherwise;
d. to maintain the quality of our services;
e. if we reasonably believe that you will fail to pay any amount due to us (whether or not we have issued you an invoice);
f. if an event occurs which is beyond our reasonable control;
g. if you break any part of this agreement.
h. restrict calls to Premium Rate Service numbers.

8. REPAIR
We will use our best endeavours to correct any defect or fault in the services provided to you as rapidly as possible.

9. LIABILITY
Neither of us will have to compensate the other for any detrimental event beyond the other's reasonable control.
In this agreement, 'beyond reasonable control' includes any act of God, reduction or failure of power supply, other telecommunication operators and suppliers or their equipment including access lines, act or omission of national or local government authority, war, military operation, riot or delay, employee dispute, or supply of equipment by third parties. In any event, we will not have to compensate you for any harm to your business, lost revenues, loss of anticipated savings, lost profits or other indirect, consequential or special losses nor for any charges incurred by you with another call carrier. You accept liability for any claims, costs, damages, losses, expenses and liabilities (including, without limitation, legal costs and expenses) resulting from illegal actions by you or any other person using the services with your permission.
Without prejudice to this our liability to you in contract or tort arising under or in connection with this agreement shall be limited to a maximum of £500 for any event or series of connected events and £1,000 in any 12-month period.

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10. GENERAL
You may not assign, delegate or transfer all or any rights and obligations under this agreement without our prior written consent.
If any provision or condition of this agreement shall be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining terms shall continue to apply.
This agreement and the documents referred to in it represent the entire contract between us, to the exclusion of any terms subject to which you may accept, or purport to accept, the service. Any variations (other than charges made in accordance with this agreement) shall be accepted by both of us in writing.
Any failure by either of us to enforce any right shall not be deemed a waiver of any such right.
Information you provide or we hold (whether or not under this agreement) may be used by us, our employees and/or agents to:
a. identify you when you make telephone enquiries;
b. help administer any accounts, services and products offered by DST or in the future; and
c. help us to detect fraud or loss.
All figures in this agreement exclude VAT.
This agreement is governed by English law.

 

Broadband & Broadband Call Package Schedules.
(Forming part of the Direct Save Telecom Residential User General Terms and Conditions)
SCHEDULE 1

Schedule of Services

• A residential service is only available on BT residential analogue telephone line, proof of status may be requested at the discretion of Direct Save Telecom.
• Rental of ADSL on existing BT analogue line from customer’s site (BT type analogue line rental payable to Direct Save Telecom)
• IP connectivity between customer’s site and Direct Save Telecom’s Internet Network.
• A static IP address. Note this must be returned upon termination of this agreement and is at no time the property of the Customer.
• If modem option is chosen, Direct Save Telecom will supply an ADSL modem and micro filter and the customer will be presented with a USB interface.
• If no modem option is chosen, the customer is expected to obtain their own hardware. Direct Save Telecom will not provide any support for hardware or configurations. It is the customer’s responsibility to ensure the hardware is compatible with the service.
• Residential services are for residential users on a single PC only and non-business use. It is forbidden to use Internet sharing devices or to host public services e.g. websites, ftp, peer to peer file sharing (eg Kazaa, Limewire etc). Misuse of the service for business use will result in the current business tariff being applied to all past and future rentals.  If users are found to be in breach of this requirement service may be terminated forthwith by Direct Save Telecom and any remaining charges due during the minimum term will be due immediately.
• Support service provided on 0845 272 0072 press option 4 or use the contact us page quoting customer number or ADSL line phone number.

SCHEDULE 2
Charges
All charges are as per our standard broadband, Line Rental and Call Option Fees price lists and are payable in advance. First month fee (or part of), Setup fees and equipment costs (where applicable) will be paid with the initial invoice. All prices include VAT.
Contract Length
You can cancel this agreement at any time. However you must give us 28 days written notice and your account must have no monies outstanding. If you leave the Broadband service within the first 12 months you will be responsible for a disconnection fee of £50.00 inc. VAT.
                                                 

For details of the usage limits for your broadband product please see our fair usage policy. Where the Customer subscribes to a usage capped product, the Customer agrees to accept, in arrears, a charge (at the rate set out in their order or at such subsequent rate as notified to them with 28 days notice), such charge to be calculated based on the nearest whole gigabyte, rounded up, as recorded by the Direct Save Telecom data transfer logs, which are deemed to be final and undisputed.
The additional charge will usually be collected with the payment for the period immediately following the month in which the additional data usage occurred.
The usage based service allows you the capability of transferring up to your allocated amount of data per month.  This allowance expires at the end of each month and cannot be transferred to a subsequent month if unused.
If you wish to transfer data in excess of these allowances you may upgrade at no charge to a different Direct Save Telecom package.
Our broadband products are subject to different performance levels and it is your responsibility to determine which is the appropriate product in accordance with your usage of the service. For more information about performance levels please click here.

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SCHEDULE 3
Service Standards

• With supplied modem or router, Direct Save Telecom only provides support up to the USB or router interface, all equipment beyond this and services are the customer’s responsibility.
• With no supplied modem or router, Direct Save Telecom only provides support for the service being provided on a working BT analogue line.
• Direct Save Telecom offers no service level guarantees on any ADSL service.

Service Credits

• Do not apply to Direct Save Telecom’s ADSL services.

Outages

• Planned Outages may occasionally be necessary for Direct Save Telecom to carry out essential maintenance or network upgrades. They will be kept to a minimum and scheduled to minimise disruption.
• Direct Save Telecom will provide a fault reporting helpdesk facility. The helpdesk will issue a fault reference number and will respond promptly to faults reported Faults remedied will be advised by email.
• Direct Save Telecom aim to rectify faults within 5 hours of issuing a fault reference number. Time to fix may be affected by circumstances. This is a target repair time and does not constitute a service level, under no circumstance is Direct Save Telecom liable for outages or consequential losses.
• Faults not involving Direct Save Telecom’s Network services or equipment. Direct Save Telecom will advise of steps taken to diagnose a fault for which Direct Save Telecom is not responsible.

SCHEDULE 4
Direct Save Telecom Acceptable Use Policy
Introduction
The following Policy contains rules that govern your use of Direct Save Telecom’s services (“Service”) and forms part of the terms and conditions of use of the Service. 
This Policy may be amended from time to time.  An up-to-date copy of the current policy will be maintained on our website.
Applying the Policy According to the Nature of Direct Save Telecom's Service to You
Depending upon the nature of the Service you have selected:

• you may be setting up website or websites to be run on either your server or our server ("Website");
• you may be using our hardware, software, network and / or telecommunications to use the Service ("Our Equipment")
• you may be providing your own hardware,software, network and / or telecommunications to use the Service ("Your Equipment")

This Policy applies to all of the Services you select.
Restrictions on the Service
You are not permitted to have illegal material on your Website(s), link to content that is illegal or to allow Our Equipment or Your Equipment to be used for any illegal activity.  You risk being prosecuted if you or any of your customers publish illegal material in this or any other country.
You must ensure that your Website(s), Our Equipment and Your Equipment are not used to incite disorder, publish, disseminate or promote any material which encourages anything which is in any way pornographic, obscene, defamatory, menacing, offensive or in any way unlawful.
Neither you nor your customers are permitted to publish any content, or link to any content, in which you or they (as applicable) do not own the right, without the prior permission of the owner of the relevant right.
You must not use or allow any of your Websites, Our Equipment or Your Equipment to be used to transmit or post any material which may cause offence to others on the grounds of gender, race or religion or which may cause annoyance or offence to any person.
Unacceptable Activities
You must not use or allow any of your Websites, Our Equipment or Your Equipment to be used to distribute or promote any of the following:

• the sending of unsolicited emails or forged messages or spoofing
• software which may be used for port-scanning, virus creation, packet sniffing, smurfing, hacking, Trojan horses or any other illegal or anti-social activity
• any activity which interferes with systems or networks’ ability to operate including denial of service attacks in any form
• lists of email addresses (unless all of the addressees on the list have given their explicit permission)
• the processing of personal data which does not comply with all applicable data protection and privacy laws and regulations
• links to any website(s) that host illegal content
• content designed to offend or cause needless anxiety to others

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Security
You must not do anything, or allow any third party to do anything, which will compromise the security of Direct Save Telecom equipment and you are therefore required to install and use appropriate virus checking software and security devices and to impose this same requirement on any of your own customers that use any of your Websites or Your Equipment.
You must not share, or disclose to any third party, any passwords provided by Direct Save Telecom.  Such passwords are your responsibility.
Direct Save Telecom's Rights
Compliance with this Policy is a contractual requirement. We reserve the right to suspend, restrict or terminate your access to the Service if either you or a third party accessing your Website or Your Equipment causes, or is likely to cause, our Service to be interrupted, damaged or impaired.
Offending material may be removed without prior notice.  We may retain a copy of such material for our records.
We reserve the right to forward offending material to the police or other regulatory authorities in the event that we are requested to do so or where a complaint is made about your use of the Service and is deemed by us to be inconsistent with this Policy.
Complaints
If you consider that one of our customers is in breach of this policy, please send details of the incident to us, see contact us page.

Please provide as much information as possible including the date, time, time zone and IP address if applicable, together with all other relevant information.  These should be provided in plain text within the email and not as attachments.
We will deal with all complaints received and take appropriate action where your complaint is upheld.  Please allow up to two working days for a response.

 

Direct Save Telecom Broadband Usage Policy Broadband usage

The following Policy contains rules that govern your use of Direct Save Telecoms services ("Service") and forms part of the terms and conditions of use of the Service. This Policy may be amended from time to time. An up-to-date copy of the current policy will be maintained on our website at www.directsavetelecom.co.uk/up.html
It is Direct Save Telecoms intent to provide our customers with the best Internet service possible. In order to accomplish this task, we have adopted this Direct Save Telecoms Usage Policy (the "UP" or "Policy"). This Policy outlines acceptable and fair use of Direct Save Telecoms Internet services (the "Service"), as well as permissible and prohibited conduct for using the Service to access the Internet. This Policy, including its customer use restrictions, is in addition to the restrictions contained in the Direct Save Telecom General Terms and Conditions.
It is the responsibility of all Direct Save Telecom customers and all others who have access to Direct Save Telecom's network ("customer," "you," or "your"), to comply with this UP and all Direct Save Telecom policies. As a Service customer, it is your responsibility to secure your computer equipment so that it is not subject to external threats such as viruses, spam, and other methods of intrusion. Failure to comply with these or any other Direct Save Telecom policies could result in the suspension or termination of your Service. If you do not agree to comply with all of these policies including the UP, you must immediately stop use of the Service and notify Direct Save Telecom so that your account may be closed.

Acceptable Usage Policy

The following are not permitted:
Spamming Sending unsolicited bulk and/or commercial messages over the Internet (known as "spamming"). It is not only harmful because of its negative impact on consumer attitudes toward Direct Save Telecom, but also because it can overload Direct Save Telecom's network and disrupt service to Direct Save Telecom subscribers. Also, maintaining an open SMTP relay is prohibited. When a complaint is received, Direct Save Telecom has the discretion to determine from all of the evidence whether the email recipients were from an "opt-in" email list.
Intellectual Property Violations Engaging in any activity that infringes or misappropriates the intellectual property rights of others, including copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade secrets, software piracy, and patents held by individuals, corporations, or other entities. Also, engaging in activity that violates privacy, publicity, or other personal rights of others. Direct Save Telecom is required by law to remove or block access to customer content upon receipt of a proper notice of copyright infringement. It is also Direct Save Telecom's policy to terminate the privileges of customers who commit repeat violations of copyright laws.
Obscene Speech or Materials Using Direct Save Telecom's network to advertise, transmit, store, post, display, or otherwise make available child pornography or obscene speech or material. Direct Save Telecom is required by law to notify law enforcement agencies when it becomes aware of the presence of child pornography on or being transmitted through Direct Save Telecom's network.

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Defamatory or Abusive Language Using Direct Save Telecom's network as a means to transmit or post defamatory, harassing, abusive, or threatening language.
Facilitating Denial of Service Attacks Using Direct Save Telecom’s network to launch, control or deliver any form of denial of service attack.
Forging of Headers Forging or misrepresenting message headers, whether in whole or in part, to mask the originator of the message where the intention is to maliciously deceive the recipient.
Illegal or Unauthorised Access to Other Computers or Networks Accessing illegally or without authorisation computers, accounts, or networks belonging to another party, or attempting to penetrate security measures of another individual's system (often known as "hacking"). Also, any activity that might be used as a precursor to an attempted system penetration (i.e. port scan, stealth scan, or other information gathering activity).
Distribution of Internet Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses, or Other Destructive Activities Distributing information regarding the creation of and sending Internet viruses, worms, Trojan horses, pinging, flooding, mailbombing, or denial of service attacks. Also, activities that disrupt the use of or interfere with the ability of others to effectively use the network or any connected network, system, service, or equipment.
Facilitating a Violation of this UP Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to violate this UP, which includes the facilitation of the means to spam, initiation of pinging, flooding, mailbombing, denial of service attacks, and piracy of software.
Usenet Groups Direct Save Telecom reserves the right not to accept postings from newsgroups where we have actual knowledge that the content of the newsgroup violates the UP.
Other Illegal Activities Engaging in activities that are determined to be illegal, including but not limited to advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available pyramid schemes, fraudulently charging credit cards, and pirating software.
Other Activities Engaging in activities, whether lawful or unlawful, that Direct Save Telecom determines to be harmful to its subscribers, operations, reputation, goodwill, or customer relations.

Fair Usage Policy

Direct Save Telecom is committed to ensuring our customers receive the best possible broadband performance for each of our broadband packages.
To achieve this goal we provide a contended broadband service. This means our Internet bandwidth is shared with all our customers at any one point in time. The amount that we contend will depend on whether you are a business or residential customer and the type of service you buy from us. Contention is a proven method for providing fast and cost effective services and is used by nearly every broadband service provider in the UK.

Most home broadband users use less than 12Gb per month, the table below shows what can be done during one month and still only use less than 1Gb.
Typical broadband usage  generating 1Gb
40 high-quality photos sent/received = 40Mb
40 low-quality photos sent/received = 4Mb
80 sound tracks downloaded = 320Mb
80 short video clips downloaded/watched = 360Mb
4 hours listening to online radio = 60Mb
1000 emails sent/received (without attachments) = 5Mb
10 small software downloads = 10Mb
4 large software downloads = 200Mb
Total monthly broadband usage = 0.98Gb
applicable products
The fair usage / acceptable limit policy currently relates to the Broadband services listed below. The table below shows the number of gigabytes (GB) per month that maybe transferred without incurring over usage charges.

Home Broadband Bundles (from 01/08/2008)	Limit
Broadband Lite	5Gb
Broadband Family	20Gb
Broadband Pro	40Gb
8Mb Home Broadband Option 4 (orders up 31/07/2008)	Limit
Off peak midnight to 6pm	UNLIMITED
Peak 6pm to midnight	20Gb
8Mb Home Broadband Option 4 Pro (orders up to 31/07/2008)	Limit
Off peak midnight to 6pm	UNLIMITED
Peak 6pm to midnight	40Gb
Business 1	UNLIMITED
Business 2	UNLIMITED
Business 3	UNLIMITED
Teleworker	UNLIMITED
Home Broadband (orders up to 20th June 2006)	Limit
2Mb Lite Home	0.5GB
2Mb Unlimited Home standard use	2GB
2Mb Unlimited Home Worker Pro	40GB
8Mb Home Broadband (up to 8Mb) (orders from 21st June 2006 to 24th September 2006)	Limit
8Mb Home	2GB
8Mb Home Plus	5GB
8Mb Home Pro	40GB
8Mb Business Broadband (up to 8Mb) (no longer available, see above for latest business broadband)	Limit
8Mb Business	2GB
8Mb Business Plus	5GB
8Mb Business Pro	20GB
8Mb Business Corp	unlimited

Why do we have a fair usage policy on Broadband?

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Most customers' favourite time to go online is between 6pm and midnight, and we want to make sure that we offer an excellent service to everyone during these peak hours. That's why we have invested in traffic management tools that share our Internet bandwidth between all our customers.

Our popular Option 4 and Option 4 Pro Broadband products have a fair usage download limit during peak hours of 20Gb and 40Gb respectively. If you constantly download extremely large files, you should consider scheduling a proportion of these to non peak times to preserve an excellent service for other users.

What is unfair usage?

A small number (under 1%) of our customers use the service unfairly by taking up a disproportionate amount of bandwidth between peak hours. By constantly downloading extremely large movie and data files, 24 hours per day, every day, they affect other people's broadband service.

If your peak time usage exceeds what is fair for your product we will temporarily reduce your connection speed during peak hours to 256kbps to ensure you don't affect other peoples service. This speed will restrict your ability to download large files as quickly as normal, but will not affect web browsing or email. Your speed will run as normal at all other times.

Will my connection be slowed down?

Unlikely, less than 1% of our customers use our service unfairly. You should only be affected if you constantly download excessive quantities of extremely large files during peak hours

How do I know if I have been slowed down?

You'll notice that downloads are taking longer than normal. However this will be reset at the start of next month. If this occurs regularly each month you should consider upgrading your broadband.

Our Fair Usage Policy operates in addition to our broadband performance system. read more

As a result of this policy the majority of our customers will benefit from faster speeds and an improved service.

Additional fair usage terms for customers on packages purchased prior to 25th September 2006 (Not Option 4) - A small number of customers use more than their “fair share” of Internet bandwidth. We often see less than 3% of customers using a disproportionate amount of Internet bandwidth. These customers degrade the performance of our broadband service by taking bandwidth away from customers who use the service fairly.
In summary, we wish to be fair to you and our services are “unlimited” for normal usage at home.
You should only be affected by the fair usage policy if you use file sharing software such as peer to peer (p2p), file transfer (ftp) or binary newsgroups (USENET).
If you exceed the fair usage / acceptable limit for your product then you will be charged £1.95 per 1Gb broadband, contention will be increased and the performance of your broadband will degrade. We will email or write to you to confirm you have exceeded your fair usage limit. If your usage continues to remain above the acceptable limits for your product we will upgrade your account to one of our “Pro” package so that you can, in future, avoid these over usage charges.

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Direct Save Telecom's Rights

Compliance with this Policy is a contractual requirement. We reserve the right to suspend, restrict or terminate your access to the Service if either you or a third party accessing your Website or Your Equipment causes, or is likely to cause, our Service to be interrupted, damaged or impaired.
Offending material may be removed without prior notice. We may retain a copy of such material for our records.
We reserve the right to forward offending material to the police or other regulatory authorities in the event that we are requested to do so or where a complaint is made about your use of the Service and is deemed by us to be inconsistent with this Policy.

Complaints

If you consider that one of our customers is in breach of this policy, please send details of the incident to us using the form found on our contact us page.
Please provide as much information as possible including the date, time, time zone and IP address if applicable, together with all other relevant information. These should be provided in plain text within the email and not as attachments. other peoples broadband is affected by the miss use of a few.

We will deal with all complaints received and take appropriate action where your complaint is upheld. Please allow up to two working days for a response.

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