NETWORK MANAGEMENT POLICY

As an Internet service provider (“ISP”) Hyperflex Broadband LLC, (“Hyperflex”, "we", "us", "our") invests significant resources to bring Internet access to our customers and strives to provide customers an optimum online experience that enables them to access all available and lawful online content and services. The purpose of this document is to disclose information regarding Hyperflex network management practices, performance, and commercial terms of its broadband Internet access service, sufficient for consumers to make informed choices regarding use of such services and for content, application, service, and device providers to develop, market, and maintain Internet offerings, consistent with applicable federal regulations.

 

In delivering broadband Internet access services, Hyperflex may utilize wholesale or other ISP “upstream” providers. This Network Management Policy is specific to Hyperflex’s network and network management practices, and services may also be subject to the network performance and network management policies and practices of our upstream providers.

NETWORK MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

General. High-speed bandwidth and network resources are limited and managing the network is essential to promote the use and enjoyment of the Internet by all of our customers. Hyperflex is committed to providing the best online experience possible for all of its customers and uses reasonable network management practices to ensure that our services are used in ways that are consistent with the specifications of a shared network. The network management practices used by Hyperflex are consistent with industry standards. For example, we use tools and practices to reduce the negative effects of spam, viruses or other harmful code or content, security attacks, network congestion, and other risks and degradations of the service. Notwithstanding other management practices, Hyperflex reserves the right to terminate or suspend a customer’s service immediately or to otherwise disconnect, remove, block, filter or restrict a customer’s use of Service if Hyperflex determines that the customer’s use violates the Acceptable Use Policy. By engaging in reasonable and responsible network management, Hyperflex can deliver the best possible broadband Internet experience to all of its customers.

 

The primary features of Hyperflex’s network management practices are:

 

        Hyperflex does not block, throttle, or inhibit any lawful content, specific applications or classes of applications.

        Hyperflex does not restrict the types of devices that can be connected to its network.

        Hyperflex does not engage in paid prioritization or affiliated prioritization.

 

Design and Redundancy. Hyperflex strives to provide end to end network redundancy wherever possible. Hyperflex deploys geographically diverse connections to ISP upstream providers connecting to physically discrete portions of our network. Hyperflex provides redundant infrastructure services such as DNS and NTP servers for use by customers. Hyperflex designs its network leveraging redundant core and access routers wherever possible so as to reduce single points of failures down to only being the last mile connection between the customer premise equipment ("CPE") modem and our point of presence (“POP”) site. Hyperflex’s network design is conceptually illustrated below:

Maintenance Windows. Hyperflex performs routine network maintenance as needed for software upgrades to add features to the network, software upgrades for security patches, and software upgrades for performance and/or bug fixes. Routine software upgrades affecting a particular part of the network usually incur less than 30 minutes of downtime and are scheduled in a way to take advantage of network redundancy so as to reduce downtime. Hyperflex also may perform network maintenance as needed to introduce network hardware changes to the network in order to scale capacity for efficient traffic utilization, to improve subscriber throughput, to provide new customer serving areas, or to increase serving capabilities in an existing area. For non-emergency changes, Hyperflex reserves the implicit right to perform maintenance nightly between the hours of 12AM and 5AM local time. For emergency maintenances, Hyperflex reserves the right to perform work at any time. For maintenance anticipated to incur prolonged downtime beyond 30 minutes, Hyperflex will do its best to provide ample email notification to the customer email address(es) on-file in the customer portal. It is the customer's responsibility to ensure the proper email address is on-file in the customer portal. It is strongly recommended to customers requiring 24/7 mission critical service and not wishing to incur downtime associated with maintenances to purchase redundant Internet access.

 

Congestion Management. Hyperflex proactively monitors its network on a continual basis to determine if an area of congestion could occur, and if an area of possible congestion is identified, network improvements will attempt to be made prior to any congestion occurring. These network improvements may include: the addition of network hardware or network segregation to accommodate additional traffic. If a period of congestion occurs, customers may experience things like: longer times to download or upload files, surfing the Web may seem somewhat slower, or playing games online may seem somewhat sluggish. Hyperflex does not manage congestion based on the online activities, protocols or applications a customer uses; it only focuses on the areas with the heaviest usage and works to alleviate any congestion prior to any customer impact. The purpose is to eliminate periods of congestion as quickly as possible.

 

Application or Content Specific Behavior. Hyperflex does not discriminate against particular types of lawful online content. Hyperflex may offer content filtering services on a subscription or other basis, allowing customers to block content, services or applications which the customer deems inappropriate, unproductive, malicious or insecure, even if such content is otherwise lawful. In the absence of customer-initiated content filtering, Hyperflex provides its customers with full access to all the lawful content, services, and applications that the Internet has to offer. However, we are committed to protecting customers from spam, phishing, and other unwanted or harmful online content and activities. In that connection, we use industry standard tools and generally accepted practices and policies to help ensure that our customers are protected from unwanted or harmful content and activities. Hyperflex’s use of these tools, techniques and policies help to identify and restrict certain harmful and unwanted online content, such as spam or phishing Web sites. In other cases, these tools, techniques and policies may permit customers to identify certain content that is not clearly harmful or unwanted, such as bulk email or Web sites with questionable security ratings and enable those customers to inspect the content further if they want to do so.

 

Device Attachments. Hyperflex allows for customer owned equipment to be used on the network, so long as such devices do not interfere with the Hyperflex network or Hyperflex’s ability to provide the services. Customer-owned devices are not supported or managed by Hyperflex. Customer-owned devices are only authorized to the network by providing the MAC address of the Internet (“WAN”) interface that is intended to communicate on the network. It is the customer’s responsibility to identify this MAC address and provide it to Hyperflex for authorization to the network.

 

Security. Hyperflex employs a number of practices to help prevent unwanted communications such as spam as well as protect the security of our customers and network. Hyperflex may limit the number of login, SMTP, DNS, and DHCP transactions per minute (at levels far above "normal" rates) that customers can send to Hyperflex’s servers in order to protect them against Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. We do not disclose the exact rate limits in order to maintain the effectiveness of these measures, which ensure that these critical services are available for all of our customers. In order to further protect our customers, Hyperflex may block a limited number of ports that are commonly used to send spam, launch malicious attacks, or steal a customer's information, for example, SQL Exploits and Microsoft communication protocol ports. In addition, Hyperflex conducts several security initiatives, and offers security tools for our customers, such as DoS monitoring and mitigation.

SERVICE PERFORMANCE

Service Technologies. Hyperflex provides broadband Internet access utilizing last mile fiber service technology and fixed wireless technology.


Subscriber Rate Limits. Hyperflex performs rate limiting in the upstream and downstream direction to enforce a given customer's service package download and upload speeds.

 

Advertised Speeds. Hyperflex provides residential and business customers with a variety of high speed Internet service packages. Hyperflex advertises its speeds as "up to" a specific level based on the tier of service to which a customer subscribes, and Hyperflex engineers its network to ensure that its customers can enjoy the speeds to which they subscribe. However, Hyperflex does not guarantee that a customer will actually achieve those speeds at all times. In the absence of the customer purchasing an expensive, dedicated Internet connection, no ISP can guarantee a particular speed at all times to a customer.

 

Actual Speeds and Latency. The "actual" speed that a customer will experience while using the Internet depends upon a variety of conditions, many of which are beyond the control of any ISP. These conditions include:


         Performance of a customer's computer or device, including its age, processing capability, its operating system, the number of applications running simultaneously, and the presence of any adware and viruses. You should make sure you are running the most up-to-date operating system your computer or other Internet connected device can handle (with all available patches installed) to maximize your connection speeds.

        Type of connection between a customer's device and demarcation point (ONT or wireless station; collectively known as “modems”). If there is a wireless link anywhere in the path between your device and the demarcation point, the connection speed you experience can often be slower than a CAT5e (or later) wired Ethernet connection, and depends on the model and configuration of the router that you use. Certain wireless connections are able to pass data more quickly than others. Wireless connections are also subject to greater interference and congestion. Wireless links used with higher speed tiers may be particularly impacted, as many wireless links do not perform at the speeds delivered by these tiers.


        Type of connection between a customer's device and demarcation point (ONT or wireless station; collectively known as “modems”). If there is a wireless link anywhere in the path between your device and the demarcation point, the connection speed you experience can often be slower than a CAT5e (or later) wired Ethernet connection, and depends on the model and configuration of the router that you use. Certain wireless connections are able to pass data more quickly than others. Wireless connections are also subject to greater interference and congestion. Wireless links used with higher speed tiers may be particularly impacted, as many wireless links do not perform at the speeds delivered by these tiers.


        The distance packets travel (round trip time of packets) between a customer's computer and its final destination on the Internet, including the number and quality of the networks of various operators in the transmission path. The Internet is a "network of networks." A customer's connection may traverse the networks of multiple providers before reaching its destination, and the limitations of those networks will most likely affect the overall speed of that Internet connection.


        Congestion or high usage levels at the website or destination. If a large number of visitors are accessing a site or particular destination at the same time, your connection will be affected if the site or destination does not have sufficient capacity to serve all of the visitors efficiently.


        Gating of speeds or access by the website or destination. In order to control traffic or performance, many websites limit the speeds at which a visitor can download from their site. Those limitations will carry through to a customer's connection.


        The performance of modems or other equipment installed at your premises. Modem performance may degrade over time, and certain modems are not capable of handling higher speeds. Our highest speed services may be particularly impacted by computer and communications limitations. We encourage you to promptly contact Hyperflex customer service if you have any concerns about your modem or leased router performance or speed capabilities.

 

Real Time Applications. Hyperflex offers a variety of service packages, with different speeds. For each of these packages, Hyperflex utilizes service technologies with latency characteristics suitable for real-time applications such as voice communication or video streaming services.

Customer Speed Test. Hyperflex offers its customers the ability to test the speeds that they are receiving on Hyperflex network from the customer's computer to a test site on Hyperflex’s network. Simply go to either http://speedtest1.hyperflexbb.com or http://speedtest2.hyperflexbb.com. Please note that this and other commercially available speed tests are dependent on several of the factors outlined above, especially the customer's own Wi-Fi network. Therefore, these tests do not necessarily reflect the performance of the Hyperflex network alone.


Usage-based billing or "Data Caps". Hyperflex generally does not limit the amount of usage (by imposing specific data caps) or impose usage-based fees. For contract customers, breaking the contract prior to the end of the committed contract term may result in an early termination fee. In those cases, the amount of the early termination fee is expressly disclosed in the customer contract. All details for Hyperflex packages, including contracts and fees, are defined according to the FCC’s broadband label format.

Impact to Fixed Wireless Internet Access Services. Hyperflex offers a fixed wireless service where the last mile between the POP site and customer premise is served by wireless instead of fiber. We strive to ensure the best service possible for our fixed wireless customers but due to the nature of fixed wireless, this service is offered as BEST EFFORT as it is subject to wireless conditions including RF interference and obstructions which can vary depending on location.

 

Privacy and Other Policies. In addition to this Network Management Policy, Hyperflex’s broadband Internet access services are subject to Hyperflex’s Privacy Policy and Acceptable Use Policy which are located at: https://www.hyperflexbb.com/broadband/Internet-Acceptable-Use-Policy.

 

Redress Options. If you have questions, concerns or inquiries regarding this Network Management Policy or customer redress options, please contact us at: 1.855.435.3922 or email support@hyperflexbb.com.