Last Revised on October 17, 2024

Carnegie Telephone Company Internet Broadband Disclosures, Terms & Conditions

Carnegie Telephone Company strives to provide consumers with accessible, easy-to-understand information about the services we provide, so they can make informed decisions about which services best meet their needs. Consistent with that goal, we have established this page as a single place where consumers and others can access and review the relevant policies, agreements, and other information about our Internet broadband Internet access services.

Additionally, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) requires that Carnegie Telephone Company and other providers of broadband Internet access services disclose certain information regarding those Internet services. The information required for disclosure under the FCC’s rules is found below and in the various policies and documents listed and linked on this website. To assist you in finding the information you’re looking for, we highlight below information that the FCC specifically calls for in the Open Internet Disclosures.

Network Practices

Carnegie Telephone Company does not discriminate against lawful Internet content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices, except as otherwise provided herein. The bullets below provide an overview of Carnegie Telephone Company network practices with respect to its Internet broadband Internet access services.

Blocking

Carnegie Telephone Company does not block or otherwise prevent end user access to lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices.

Throttling

Except as otherwise provided herein, Carnegie Telephone Company does not degrade or impair access to lawful Internet traffic on the basis of content, application, service, user, or use of a non-harmful device.

Affiliated Prioritization

Carnegie Telephone Company does not directly or indirectly favor some traffic over other traffic, including through use of techniques such as traffic shaping, prioritization, or resource reservation, to benefit an affiliate.

Paid Prioritization

Network Management

Carnegie Telephone Company manages its network with one goal: to deliver the best possible broadband Internet access service to all of its customers. To further this effort, Carnegie Telephone Company uses reasonable network management practices that are consistent with industry standards. Carnegie Telephone Company uses various tools and techniques to manage its network, deliver its service, and ensure compliance with the Terms of Use & User Agreement posted on our website. These tools and techniques are dynamic and can and do change frequently. Network management activities may include, but are not limited to, identifying spam and preventing its delivery to customer email accounts, and detecting malicious Internet traffic and preventing the distribution of, or inadvertent access to, malware, phishing, viruses, or other harmful code or content. These network management practices may also include rate-shaping of various internet services during times of high network use or congestion.

As the Internet and its related technologies continue to evolve, Carnegie Telephone Company network management tools will also keep pace so we can deliver an excellent, reliable, and safe experience to all of our customers. We will provide updates here as well as other locations if we make significant changes to our network management techniques.

Application-Specific Behavior

Carnegie Telephone Company provides its broadband Internet access service customers with full access to all the lawful content, services, and applications that the Internet has to offer. Except as otherwise provided herein, Carnegie Telephone Company does not block or rate- control specific protocols or protocol ports (except to prevent spam, malicious attacks, and identity theft), does not modify protocol fields in ways not prescribed by protocol standards, and does not otherwise inhibit or favor certain applications or classes of applications.

Device Attachment Rules

Many devices are approved to access our broadband Internet access service. In order for any type of modem device or wireless device to be approved for use on the network, it must pass UL certification, FCC certification, and Carnegie Telephone Company device testing. DSL service requires the usage of one of our approved ADSL2+ or VDSL2 modems. Other modems are not supported. Fiber network access requires the usage of one of our approved ONT (Optical Network Terminal) devices. Wireless access requires the use of equipment we supply. If any equipment other than what is approved by us is used on our network, you do so at your own risk. We will not support, install, configure, test, repair, or otherwise assist in the use of these unapproved network devices. Carnegie Telephone may, from time to time, at its sole option and discretion, assist a customer in the use of non-approved equipment, when it determines that the use of such equipment is not deleterious to its network. However, we reserve the ability to charge a customary and reasonable fee for such time as is necessary for the provision and support of such a device.

Security

Carnegie Telephone Company employs a number of practices to help prevent unwanted communications, such as spam, and protect the security of Carnegie Telephone Company customers and network. We limit the number of login, SMTP, DNS, and DHCP transactions per second (at levels far above “normal” rates) that customers can send to our servers in order to protect them from Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. (We do not disclose exact rate limits in order to maintain the effectiveness of these measures.)

Traffic Shaping and Performance Enhancement

Carnegie Telephone Company may use various traffic-shaping techniques, including the use of transparent proxies, to restrict data flow at peak hours of consumption, during network congestion or high use events. These measures may be implemented at the sole discretion of the Company, without any prior notice to end users. The use of these traffic-shaping techniques is only used to optimize the performance of our network for all customers, particularly during times of high use. A typical user may not experience any change in behavior from any particular internet application because of these practices. However, some users may notice that video streams may be reduced in quality from, for example, 4K to HD or SD during times of network congestion.

We may also limit the bandwidth used by P2P (peer-to-peer) file sharing platforms, software updates, or remote backup services during peak hours of consumption, during times of congestion or high network use, which are typically from 3pm to 11pm, local time, on a daily basis. This is done to optimize performance of real-time communications protocols and video streaming, among other uses.

As otherwise provided in this disclosure, Carnegie Telephone does not accept consideration (payment) from any content provider to prioritize one type of traffic over another in the execution of its performance management activities.

Performance Characteristics & Service Description

Speeds advertised and offered are the “maximum” throughput that is possible. We offer several speed packages, and they are denoted in the service’s name with a whole number after the type or technology of service. For instance, FIBER-50 service, would indicate a Fiber Optic service with a speed of 50 megabits per second maximum sustained throughput.
A Megabit is defined as 1,048,576 bits, or approximately 125 kilobytes of information.
A Second is defined as one sixtieth (1/60) of a minute, or more precisely, as the time needed for a Cesium-133 atom to perform 9,192,631,770 complete oscillations.
‘Mbps’ is an abbreviation for Megabits per second
Download speed refers to capacity or speed from the Internet to a customer
Upload speed refers to capacity or speed from the customer to the Internet
Speed packages are detailed in the provided Broadband Facts Disclosures documents available for each speed tier. You can find those disclosures here.
Speeds are not guaranteed. Internet speeds can and will vary depending on traffic conditions both on the internet as a whole and our network.
Certain weather phenomena can affect your speeds and throughput
Other factors beyond our control can affect your internet speed.
You agree to release, hold harmless, and affirmatively agree that our service is provided “as is” with no representation as to its fitness or merchantability for a particular purpose.
Outages of service must be reported to the office by telephone during normal business hours, or after hours by leaving a message with our after-hours answering service or voicemail.
Outages lasting more than 1 day (24 hours) will be credited to the customer on a pro-rated basis, which means 1/30 of the regular monthly rate, per day of the outage, if requested by the customer within 30 days of the outage incident.
We cannot and do not guarantee speeds or throughput to any specific service, application, website or other internet service, utility or platform.

Carnegie Telephone Company has always prided itself on providing state-of-the-art broadband services at the highest possible speeds. It consistently delivers at or above the “provisioned” speed for the particular service tier. We recommend you use a trusted site, such as speedtest.net, so you can test your connection for yourself. We are not affiliated with speedtest.net

Pricing and Other Fees

Carnegie Telephone Company broadband Internet access services may be subject to promotional rates. Additional fees, such as for equipment rental, installation, and early termination, may apply. For information about pricing and fees for Carnegie Telephone Company Internet tiers of service, please visit our webpage.

Data Usage Plans

Carnegie Telephone Company does not currently apply any “data caps,” usage thresholds, or any other form of usage- based billing. You are able to use an unlimited amount of data without any overage fees.

DMCA Complaint Policy

Carnegie Telephone Company is required to operate its network in such a way that prevents the proliferation of copyrighted content from being downloaded or uploaded. As such, companies that are copyright holders may serve notice upon us from time to time when they, or their agents, find evidence of illegal, pirated content being transferred by an IP address that belongs to our Company. In the event that we receive such a notice, the following events will happen:

Upon the first notice given to us by a rights holder, we shall notify our customer via certified mail of the infringing activity and remind them in said letter that this conduct is prohibited, and that further violations of the notice may results in permanent disconnection of service.

Upon the second notice given to us by a rights holder, we shall again notify our customer via certified mail of the infringing activity. Also, their internet service will be suspended for 24 consecutive hours without prior notice. We will not reconnect service early under any circumstance.

Upon the third notice given to us by a rights holder, we shall immediately terminate internet service permanently to the customer’s location that caused or initiated the infringing activity. Internet service will not be restored for a period of 1 year, or 365 calendar days. This action is not appealable. Service will not be restored for the same customer for the entire period under any circumstance. The company further reserves the right not to reconnect service for an unlimited duration of time, if, under the company’s sole and exclusive judgment, that reconnecting service would likely cause additional DMCA complaints to be received.

Carnegie Telephone Company charges a fee to notify customers of DMCA complaints. For each certified mail letter sent, a charge of $89.50 will be assessed to your account. If your service is suspended after a second notice, there is a $95 fee assessed to reconnect service.

Internet Terms & Conditions of Service