High Speed Internet Network Management Practices

Pursuant to the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet Rules found in Part 8 of Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Citynet provides this statement regarding the high speed Internet services provided by Citynet, its network management practices, service performance, and terms of service so that our current customers, prospective customers, third-party content providers and other interested parties may make informed choices regarding the high-speed Internet access services we offer.

Citynet’s Internet Services

Citynet is a Gig company and as such, does not offer high-speed high-speed Internet access service options at less than a Gig of bandwidth to connect to the Internet.  Such services are provided over Citynet’s 100% Fiber-to-the-Premises in select areas.  The terms and conditions applicable to Citynet’s Internet access services are contained in its Residential Subscriber Agreement (for residential customers) located at https://www.citynet.net/about/legal.  Citynet’s Acceptable Use Policy can be found as part of its Residential Subscriber Agreement at https://www.citynet.net/about/legal.

Network Management

Citynet does not discriminate against lawful Internet content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices.  Citynet uses the following measures to further its commitment to providing optimal Internet service to customer, subject to reasonable network management practices:

  • No Blocking. Citynet does not block or otherwise prevent access to legal content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices.
  • No Throttling. Citynet does not impair or degrade lawful internet traffic on the basis of content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices.
  • No Paid Prioritization. Citynet does not directly or indirectly favor some lawful internet traffic over other lawful internet traffic in exchange for consideration of any kind, monetary or otherwise.

Citynet manages its High-Speed Internet Network to deliver the best possible high-speed Internet experience to all of its customers.  Citynet uses various tools and techniques to manage its network, deliver its service, and ensure compliance with the Acceptable Use Policy.  Without effective network management, customers would be subject to the negative effects of spam, viruses, security attacks, network congestion, and other risks or degradations of the service.  Network management activities may include identifying spam and preventing its delivery to customer email accounts, detecting malicious Internet traffic and preventing the distribution of viruses or other harmful code or content and using other tools and techniques that Citynet may be required to implement in order to meet its goal of delivering the best possible high-speed Internet experience to all of its customers.

Citynet has not established a monthly data usage cap for its customers.  We do monitor usage, however, and we regularly review accounts with uncommonly high usage relative to all other accounts to ensure that such accounts have not been subjected to cloning, unauthorized access or business use, other security breach, or unlawful activity.  As part of our review, we may contact account holders to inquire about usage and may take or require actions to correct problems such as security, class of use or unlawful activity.

Content Access

Citynet provides its customers with full access to all lawful content, services, and applications and is committed to protecting customers from spam, phishing, and other unwanted or harmful online content and activities.  Citynet uses industry standard tools and generally accepted best practices and policies to help it meet this customer commitment.  In cases where these tools and policies identify certain online content as harmful and unwanted, such as spam or phishing websites, this content is usually prevented from reaching customers.  Citynet limits the number of logins, SMTP, DNS, and DHCP transactions per second (at levels far above ‘normal’ rates) that customers can send to Citynet’s servers in order to protect them against Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.  The exact rate limits are not disclosed in order to maintain the effectiveness of these measures.

Network Traffic

Citynet does not block Peer to Peer (P2P) network traffic or applications like BitTorrent, Gnutella, or others as part of its current network management practice, however, Citynet deploys certain measures to enforce the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).  Citynet also does not prioritize any type of network traffic in a preferential manner.  In order to protect its customers, Citynet blocks a limited number of ports that are commonly used to send spam, launch malicious attacks, or steal a customer’s information.

Internet Gateway(s)

An approved gateway device is required for the use of the Citynet High-Speed Internet Service.  Citynet provides gateways to its customers at no cost, which are pre-configured to integrate with Citynet’s network and systems to be used on the network, to enable the customers to enjoy the high-speed Internet access service speeds to which they subscribe.  Currently customers may provide their own gateway(s) in order to receive the Citynet High-Speed Internet Service; however, the customer supplied gateway needs to approved by Citynet.

Citynet does not limit the lawful devices that can be attached to a gateway and used with Citynet’s Internet services, PROVIDED that the user complies with Citynet’s applicable Acceptable Use Policy and terms of service referenced above.

Performance Standards

Citynet provisions its equipment and engineers its network to maximize customers’ ability to receive the maximum speed level provisioned for each residential customer.  Citynet, however, does not guarantee that a customer will achieve those speeds at all times.  The actual speed a customer experiences may vary based on a number of factors and conditions, many of which are beyond the control of Citynet.  These conditions include:

  • The performance of a customer’s Internet connected device, such as a computer, smartphone, tablet, or other, including its age, memory, processing capability, its operating system, the number of users in a household at a particular moment and the number of applications running simultaneously impacts the speed and performance of your Internet service. The presence of any malware or viruses also has an effect on your Internet connected device’s ability to communicate with the Internet. Often, increasing the amount of memory (RAM) in your Internet connected device can have a positive effect on how quickly your Internet connected device can communicate with the Internet.  You should make sure that you are running the most up-to-date operating system your Internet connected device can handle (with all available patches installed) to maximize your connection speeds.
  • Type of connection between a customer’s Internet connected device and gateway. In- home wireless connections may be slower than wired connections. Wireless connections also may be subject to greater fluctuations, interference and congestion.
  • The distance packets travel (round trip time of packets) between a customer’s Internet connected device and its final destination on the Internet, including the number and quality of the networks of various operators in the transmission path. 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 suitability of the gateway device. Gateway performance may degrade over time, and some gateways may not be capable of handling higher speeds. Citynet provides gateways to its customers, which are pre-configured to integrate with Citynet’s network and systems to be used on the network to enable the customers to enjoy the high-speed Internet access service speeds to which they subscribe.

Latency is another measurement of Internet performance that refers to the time it takes for a packet of data to travel from one designated point to another on a network.  Since many communication protocols depend upon an acknowledgement that packets were received successfully, or otherwise involve transmission of data packets back and forth along a path in the network, latency is often measured by round-trip time.  Some applications are particularly sensitive to latency, such as some high-definition multiplayer online games.  Latency is typically measured in milliseconds, and generally has no significant impact on typical everyday Internet usage.  As latency varies based on any number of factors, most importantly the distance between a customer’s Internet connected device and the ultimate Internet destination (as well as the number, variety, and quality of networks your packets cross), it is not possible to provide customers with a single figure that will define latency as part of a user experience.

Citynet provisions 1,000 Mbps upload and download speeds to residential customers on its dedicated fiber service network.  Please note, due to technological limitations related to the capabilities of 1 Gigabit Ethernet ports in some Internet connected devices (such as routers, wireless routers/APs, laptops/PCs), individual devices may experience download speeds lower than 1,000 Mbps.  Consequently, due to this Ethernet overhead, actual download speeds to a device for our 1,000 Mbps service are limited to 940 Mbps over a hardwired connection, unless you have an Ethernet port rated for multi-Gbps speeds.

You can also test the speeds yourself.  Citynet provides its customers with a performance speed test to ensure the quality of our service delivery.  This industry standard test is installed on the Citynet network and is available at any time without charge at https://www.citynet.net/internet/speed-test.  These tests are heavily dependent on many of the factors described above, however, and therefore do not necessarily reflect the performance of the Citynet network alone.

 Customer Information Privacy and Security

Citynet offers computer network security tools for its customers.  Citynet also maintains the privacy and security of all customer network traffic as described above and in accordance with the Citynet privacy policy available online at https://www.citynet.net/about/legal.

Additional Information

For more information or to file a complaint about Citynet’s network management practices please contact the company at 800.881.2638. If any information found within our policies and agreements located on https://www.citynet.net/about/legal are inconsistent with this network management disclosure, this disclosure controls.