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Fair Use Policy

As part of our continuing effort to provide the best experience to all of our customers, Cellular One has created this Fair Use Policy. This Fair Use Policy states important requirements regarding your use of the Cellular One service. This Fair Use Policy also discloses information about Cellular One’s network performance, network management practices, and network security. You should read this carefully as it contains important information.  Cellular One may revise this Fair Use Policy from time to time by posting a new version of this document on www.mycellularone.com/fair-use-policy or any successor URL(s). All revised copies of this Fair Use Policy are effective immediately upon posting. Accordingly, customers should regularly visit the Cellular One Website.

At Cellular One, our goal is to give each customer the fastest service possible at the best value. We are always striving to develop programs and policies to make that possible. Our Fair Use Policy is designed to help ensure the best speeds for the vast majority of our customers, while minimizing any inconvenience caused by our network management practices. To ensure that all customers have equitable access to the Cellular One network, Cellular One has established usage levels that limit the amount of data that a customer can upload and download within stated periods of time, as described further below.

DATA PLANS

Unlimited Plans

If you subscribe to rate plans, services or features that are described as unlimited, you should be aware that such “unlimited” plans remain subject to Cellular One’s excessive use, and disproportionate roaming, and this Fair Use Policy. If user’s usage of the services (including unlimited plans of any kind) on other carriers’ networks (roaming or off-network usage) is greater than fifty percent (50%) during any two months during a 12-month period, measured from the start date of a user’s contract, Cellular One may at its option terminate user’s wireless service or access to data Services, deny user’s continued use of other carriers’ coverage, or change user’s plan to one imposing usage charges for roaming usage. Except with a Cellular One Tethering rate plan or feature, you may not use a phone (including a Bluetooth phone) as a modem in connection with a computer, PDA, or similar device. A violation of this policy is grounds for termination of your service without notice in Cellular One’s sole discretion.

Post-Paid Plans

Cellular One’s Post-Paid Plans include differing amounts of monthly data allotments dependent on your choice of Post-Paid Plan. Typically, Cellular One offers Post-Paid Plans with monthly data allotments in increments of 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14 gigabytes. Monthly data allotments are good for your 30-day billing cycle. Unused data does not roll over to the next month. We will notify you by text and/or email when you reach 75%, 85%, 95%, of your monthly data allotment and again when you reach 100% of your monthly data allotment. Once you use your monthly data allotment your data feature will not work until the next monthly billing cycle unless you purchase an additional data “Bolt-On” available in incremental amounts. Purchased data Bolt-On’s are good until your next billing cycle. When you start a new billing cycle unused data from a purchased Bolt-On does not roll over and is forfeited. Whatever Post-Paid Plan you have, or whatever additional data Bolt-On you may purchase, Cellular One does not reduce your bitrate transfer speed (i.e., throttling of data speed).

Pre-Paid Plans

If you subscribe to a Pre-Paid Plan you may purchase incremental amounts of data. Typically, Cellular One offers 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 10 gigabyte Data Bundles. Data Bundles are good for 30 days from date of purchase. Unused data does not roll over to the next billing cycle. Whatever plan you purchase, Cellular One does not reduce your bitrate transfer speed (i.e., throttling of data speed). We will notify you by text and/or email when you reach 75%, 85%, 95%, of your purchased Data Bundle and again when you reach 100% of your purchased data Bundle. Once you reach the limit of your purchased Data Bundle your data feature will not work unless you have a monetary balance on your account in which case your data feature will continue to work and use of data will be charged against the monetary balance on your account. You may purchase additional Data Bundles at any time. Currently Cellular One offers the Flex and FreedomFone Pre-Paid Plans.

VisionOne/Free4Life

If you subscribe to the VisionOne/Free4Life Plan you automatically receive 500 MB of data on the Cellular One network and any other network in which Cellular One has a roaming agreement in place. Currently, Cellular One has roaming agreements with AT&T and T-Mobile. Data that is unused will be forfeited and your unused allotment will not roll over to the next billing cycle. We will notify you by text and/or email when you reach 75%, 85%, 95%, of your monthly data allotment and again when you reach 100% of your monthly data allotment. Once you use your 500 MB data allotment your data feature will not work until the next monthly billing cycle unless you purchase additional Data Bundles in incremental amounts at any time, or if you have a monetary balance on your account in which case your data feature will continue to work and use of data will be charged against the monetary balance on your account. Typically, Cellular One offers 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 10 gigabyte data bundles. Purchased Data Bundles are good for a 30-day cycle from the date of your purchase. Unused data at the end of the 30 days does not roll over. Once you reach the limit of your purchased Data Bundle your data feature will not work. Cellular One does not reduce your bitrate transfer speed (i.e., throttling of data speed) on your monthly data allotment, or on any purchased Data Bundle.

Measuring Actual Usage

While measuring Actual Usage Cellular One reviews the amount of each customer’s data usage to calculate the amount of traffic associated with that customer.

Please note that your data usage total will depend how you use your data. Data usage increases if you use large quantities of music files, full software applications, or engage in similar high-bandwidth activities.

Approximate Data Usage Examples

Basic information and examples showing the approximate data usage for several common Internet activities appear below.

Use Approximate Size

  • E-mail (1 text page without attachments) (3KB)

Based on this assumption, you would need to send and/or receive approximately 699,050 e-mails in a month to reach 2 GB

  • Word Document (5 text pages) (70KB)

Based on this assumption, you would need to download approximately 29,959 Word Documents in a month to 2 GB

  • Web Page(150KB)

Based on this assumption, you would need to look up approximately 13,981 web pages in a month (or over 1,000/day) to reach 2 GB

  • Digital Photo(500KB)

Based on this assumption, you would need to download approximately 4,194 low resolution digital photos in a month to reach 2 GB

  • PowerPoint Presentation (20 pages text & light graphics) (3MB)

Based on this assumption, you would need to download approximately 6821 PowerPoint presentations in a month to reach 2 GB

  • One hour of standard music streaming(60MB)

Based on this assumption, you would need to download approximately 34 hours and 0 minutes of standard music streaming to reach 2 GB

Note: The above examples are just estimates, based on approximate size assumptions. Actual file sizes and user experiences will vary.

Network Performance

The actual speeds that you experience can vary depending on a number of factors, including the type of device you are using, the websites or applications you are accessing, the time of day, network congestion, and other factors in the transmission path from your device to the Internet endpoint that you are accessing. You may also experience slower network speeds if a cell tower or area is experiencing more data usage than normal, which overburdens that tower or area. Coverage limitations may also affect your actual network speed. Coverage can be affected by such things as terrain, weather, foliage, buildings, signal strength, customer equipment and other factors. Coverage indoors may also vary.

Cellular One estimates that the typical Cellular One network speed range is 144kbps to 14.4mbps for 3G service. These estimated ranges are based on field measurement data collected by Cellular One. In addition to the performance factors identified above, network performance may vary based on “roundtrip latency,” which refers to the average time for a data packet to travel from your device to an Internet destination and back again. Cellular One estimates that the roundtrip latency is 500 to 800 ms for 3G service. The above speeds and latency figures are approximations only.

Network Management and Security

To help ensure equitable access to the Cellular One network for all customers, Cellular One has implemented some network management practices. Cellular One has implemented optimization and transcoding technologies to more efficiently transmit data. These techniques include caching data, delivering content “just in time,” compressing data, and re-sizing video for the device, which may affect the appearance of the content being displayed.

To ensure that peer-to-peer traffic does not unreasonably hamper our customers’ ability to access the Internet, we limit the aggregate bandwidth available to transmit peer-to-peer traffic to one percent of total available bandwidth during that period of peak usage. As a result of this aggregate bandwidth limitation, customers seeking to send or receive peer-to-peer traffic during the period of peak usage may experience significantly slower throughput speeds compared to other types of traffic. Although, as noted above, a wide variety of factors will determine actual speeds in any given instance, the actual speeds for peer-to-peer traffic during the period of peak usage may fall below 144 kbps for 3G service.

Cellular One allows use of all GSM devices that are programmed to operate on the Cellular One network, that receive a Cellular One signal, and that have paid for service to be activated on the Cellular One network. Except with a Cellular One Tethering rate plan or feature, you may not use a phone (including a Bluetooth phone) as a modem in connection with a computer, PDA, or similar device. A violation of this policy is grounds for termination of your service without notice in Cellular One’s sole discretion.

Cellular One’s network management practices are agnostic to the content that traverses its network and to the websites that provide that content. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Cellular One may block traffic that violates its Fair Use Policy.

The FCC has indicated that service providers offering “specialized services,” which share bandwidth with broadband Internet access services but provide distinct functionalities, must describe the impact of such services on the performance of your broadband Internet access service. Although the FCC has not defined the term “specialized services,” point to point Internet service, or tethering, could be considered examples of such a service.

Cellular One designs and manages its network in a manner intended to enable the delivery of quality service regardless of the specific applications you are enjoying at any given time. Nevertheless, as with any service that makes use of shared network capacity, it is possible that heavy use of, including but not limited to, file transfers, online gaming, streaming during periods of network congestion or simultaneous heavy use of Internet access could impact the throughput speed at which online content is delivered to your device. Cellular One monitors network usage and seeks to augment capacity as necessary to enable customers to use all of our services with minimal adverse impacts from network congestion.

Service is subject to the Cellular One service contract which you should read before activating service. For Cellular One’s Privacy Policy go to www.mycellularone.com/privacy-policy. For Cellular One’s Open Internet Disclosure go to www.mycellularone.com. For a list of current rate plans go to www.mycellularone.com/plans.

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 To activate please call our Customer Care team at 1-800-730-2351 or visit your local Cellular One store.