“Improper Use” means any use of the Services which is illegal, infringes anyone’s rights (including intellectual property rights), is malicious, immoral, obscene, and offensive or otherwise causes detriment to Vistagate and/or our other customers.

Specific activities that will be deemed Improper Use of Vistagate internet services include (and are not limited to):

• illegal downloading (including but not limited to breach of the Copyright Act 1994);
• sending unsolicited electronic messages or “Spam” (including but not limited to breach of the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007), offensive or objectionable messages or publications, threats, unsolicited bulk email chain letters, pyramid schemes or hoaxes;
• knowingly transmitting and/or distributing any spam, worms or viruses, or otherwise using services in a way which is intended to (or may) damage or compromise the security of our network or anyone else’s network;
• making any kind of deliberate attempt to overload the network or anyone else’s network, including mail bombing, excessive pings or otherwise causing excessive internet traffic;
• operating server(s) from any of our services;
• activities aimed at making profit or reselling our service without written approval from us;

“Excessive Use” means, in relation to unlimited internet plans with no data cap, use of Services which significantly exceeds normal customer usage patterns.
Usage may be considered excessive and unreasonable if it is deemed to exceeds the average and/or estimated use patterns over any day, week or month (or other period of time as determined by us).
If in our reasonable opinion we consider your usage to be unfair, unreasonable and/or excessive, we may immediately suspend, modify or restrict your use of the services without providing notice to you (this includes traffic and/or speed shaping).

Specific activities that may result in Excessive Use of unlimited internet plans include, without limitation;

• mail bombing;
• excessive downloading/uploading;
• “denial of service” attacks;
• “flooding” attacks;
• pings;
• Or any other means of causing excessive internet traffic.

Bandwidth allocated to unlimited internet users is reviewed and increased as required, but at any time there is a fixed amount of bandwidth available.
The aim of this Fair Use Policy is to ensure that the experience of the vast majority of unlimited internet users is not compromised by the extreme and unreasonable usage of a few.

If we become aware that you have breached this FUP by engaging in Improper Use or Excessive Use, we may contact you and request that you refrain from engaging in further Improper and/or Excessive Use.
Any customer that becomes aware of a breach of this policy by an end user must promptly contact and advise Vistagate.
If you continue to engage in Improper or excessive use after we have requested you to refrain from doing so, we may, without notice (at our discretion and or in accordance with our legal obligations) suspend, modify or restrict your use of Vistagate services, co-operate with and notify relevant authorities, or terminate your account.
Vistagate reserves the right to modify (through speed and other variables) the behaviour of individual users that frequently use significantly more data than the majority of the unlimited users and/or use their internet service in a way that negatively affects the experience of other users.
If an unlimited internet customer is found to be in the top 1% to 10% of users and their usage is negatively impacting the network, Vistagate may exercise its rights outlined in this Fair Use Policy.

On “unlimited” plans there are no data caps and no excess data charges (subject to this Fair Use Policy). This means that customers on “unlimited” broadband plans can download unlimited amounts of data, but it also can mean some congestion, typically between the hours of 3pm to 11pm, but sometimes at other times as well.
We manage the congestion by occasionally managing the traffic for users on all “unlimited” plans during this time, and at other times when our system shows that there is congestion.
With Vistagate non-unlimited Internet plans, after you have used the data volume that you have signed up for the internet service will cease. You will then be prompted to purchase another plan to continue using the service. We sometimes manage traffic during times of congestion on these plans but this is less common than on “unlimited” plans.

Please ensure that you have read and understood this Fair Use Policy, which forms part of our standard Terms and Conditions and is published by us at http://vistagate.com/fair-use-policy/
If you are on an “unlimited” plan, Vistagate does not apply a cap on the amount of data you can use (subject to this Fair Use Policy).
The speed you will receive on our Unlimited plan may be reduced if we deem your usage excessive (As outlined in this Fair Use Policy). Our “unlimited” plans are popular with people who download a lot of data, but from time to time it can result in congestion when a lot of users are using a lot of data all at the same time.

For this reason, we manage traffic on “unlimited” plans in an attempt to optimise the experience for all users on the network to the greatest extent we can.
We have developed our Fair Use Policy by reference to average customer profiles and estimated customer usage of our Services.
At times when there is congestion, and we are managing traffic in this way, which is typically between the hours of 3pm to 11pm, there may be some users that experience reduced speeds.
It is important to remember that your broadband speed may be affected by many factors other than our traffic management system and network congestion. Some of these are:

• The quality of the copper wiring and connections inside your property.
• Your computer performance including memory and disk space available.
• If you’re using a wireless internet connection, speed will vary based on the device you’re using, wireless signal strength and interference in your area.
• How busy the website or service you are using is.