AiMSnet Broadband Specific Terms & Conditions
These Specific Terms and Conditions are to be read in conjunction with our Standard Terms and Conditions. All definitions contained within these Specific Terms and Conditions have the same meaning as those set out in the Standard Terms and Conditions. In the event of any conflict between these Specific Terms and Conditions and the Standard Terms and Conditions, the provisions of these Specific Terms and Conditions shall apply.
1. THE SERVICES
1.1 The fibre broadband services to which these Specific Terms and Conditions relate ("Fibre Broadband Services") provide you with access to the Internet via optical fibre (rather than traditional copper cabling) for the connection between the BT exchange and your local street Cabinet. The Fibre Broadband Services will be provided to you at the premises specified in your Customer Application. The Fibre Office and Fibre Office Plus Fibre Broadband Services are for use by Business customers only. Aimsnet reserves the right to request Company registration and / or VAT registration numbers to support your eligibility for such products.
1.2 Your use of the Fibre Broadband Services constitutes acceptance of our Acceptable Usage Policy.
2. ACCEPTANCE OF YOUR ORDER
2.1 Before we can accept your Order, we need to be certain that we can provide you with the Fibre Broadband Services. To do this, we need to successfully: a) determine that fibre broadband is available in your area and that your telephone line is in a fibre broadband enabled location; b) check that the line qualification indicates that a minimum line rate of 15 Mbit/s is likely to be achieved; and c) complete the installation and activation of the Fibre Broadband Services.
2.2 Your Order will be rejected if: a) you do not have a BT provided PSTN line; b) the line length test shows that your premises are outside the transmission limitation of the Fibre Broadband Service; or c) your line is not in a Fibre Broadband Service availability area.
2.3 If it is not possible to provide the Fibre Broadband Services because one or more of the checks at clauses 2.1 and/or 2.2 cannot be completed successfully, we will notify you as soon as possible. We will also refund any charges for the Fibre Broadband Services that you may have paid in advance, apart from any Abortive Visit Charges that have been incurred.
2.4 If you rent your premises, you must have a valid contract for a BT provided PSTN line. The contract for the BT provided PSTN must be with you and not your landlord.
3. DISTANCE SELLING – YOUR CANCELLATION RIGHTS
3.1 The following clauses apply to residential Fibre Broadband Services customers only, apart from clause 3.6 which shall also apply to business customers.
3.2 If you ordered the Fibre Broadband Services and/or any Equipment from us either over the internet, by telephone or by any other distance selling method you may cancel the Contract in accordance with the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 (“Regulations”) at any time up to 10 working days after (a) (in the case of Equipment) receiving any Equipment or (b) (in the case of the Fibre Broadband Services) the date upon which the contract is concluded between us, in each case, provided that you have received a copy of these Terms. If you have not received a copy of these Terms, the 10 working days shall commence on the date that you receive them.
3.3 If you have commenced using the Fibre Broadband Services after receiving these Terms, or if you agree to us commencing the provision of the Fibre Broadband Services (including placing an order with any of our suppliers for the provision of the Fibre Broadband Services) prior to the end of the 10 working day period you will be deemed to have accepted these Terms and agree that you will also lose your statutory right of cancellation under the Regulations.
3.4 If you have purchased any Equipment and you wish to exercise your right to cancel the Contract pursuant to this clause, you must return the Equipment to us by special delivery. The Equipment must be undamaged and in its original packaging.
3.5 We will issue you with a refund within 30 days of us receiving any Equipment. This refund will only apply to the purchase price of the Equipment; we will not refund the cost of returning Equipment to us unless it is faulty. If you do not return all the Equipment that you have received, we shall be entitled to charge you for the costs we incur in collecting them from you.
3.6 Subject to the remainder of this clause 3, the charges for cancellations received prior to the installation date are set out at clause 11.2. This clause shall apply to both business and residential customers.
4. INSTALLATION
4.1 Before accepting your Order, we may give you some advice on any necessary preparation. You will need to provide a suitable location for any Equipment which is purchased from us, or which you supply yourself.
4.2 We will contact you to arrange an appointment for a BT Openreach engineer (the “Engineer”) to visit your premises to install the Fibre Broadband Services.
4.3 You will be contacted by the Engineer prior to the booked appointment to discuss the proposed installation and to confirm the appointment slot. If necessary, the Engineer will re-arrange the appointment at your request.
4.4 The Engineer will call you on the day of the appointment prior to starting work at the street cabinet. However, the Engineer will not commence work unless you have confirmed your availability. If you are not contactable or available, you will be charged an Abortive Visit Charge as set out at clause 13.1
4.5 To enable us to provide the Fibre Broadband Services, certain equipment needs to be installed at your premises. As part of the installation the Engineer will install: a) a Service Specific Front Plate (“SSFP”); and b) a VDSL2 modem (“Active NTE”) which will be connected to the data port of the SSFP.
4.6 The Active NTE must be within reach of a power supply and must remain connected to the power and data port of the SSFP at all times.
4.7 The SSFP will be fitted to your existing NTE5 socket. Where no NTE5 exists, the Engineer will install a new NTE5 within 3 metres of the entrance to your premises.
4.8 It is your responsibility to make sure that there are enough mains socket outlets at your premises to provide a power supply for any equipment which may form part of the Fibre Broadband Services.
4.9 After installation of the Fibre Broadband Services you may notice a slight change to how your telephone sounds. This is normal for Broadband products and is not a fault.
4.10 The Fibre Broadband Service may affect: a) the performance of some PSTN equipment and voice band modems used by fax machines and by personal computers may operate at a lower speed; and b) security or burglar alarm systems that use the PSTN service You are responsible for checking the compatibility of such systems before arranging for connection.
4.11 Non-standard house wiring may affect the quality of the Fibre Broadband Services delivered to telephone extension sockets in your premises.
5. ACTIVATION
5.1 We will use our reasonable efforts to activate the Fibre Broadband Services by the date notified to you following acceptance of your Order, however, all dates are estimates and we cannot guarantee that they will be met.
5.2 When the Fibre Broadband Services are being activated at your premises, you may lose your telephone service for up to an hour. This is because your existing connection needs to be adjusted to allow you to access the Fibre Broadband Services.
5.3 We will use our reasonable endeavours to make any loss of telephone service as brief as possible, but you acknowledge that the timing of the activation and the period of the loss of service are the sole responsibility of a third-party contractor and are, therefore, outside of our control.
5.4 We cannot accept any liability for any costs, expenses, losses, damages or other liabilities (howsoever arising) which you may incur as a result of the timing of the activation or the period of any loss of service referred to at Clause 5.2 above.
5.5 The Fibre Broadband Service is rate adaptive and as such the speed of service may change over time. The quoted speeds for each product specified by us refer to the maximum available download bandwidth. Upload and download bandwidth speeds for the Fibre Broadband Service may vary depending upon: a) the distance between your premises and the street cabinet; and b) the number of other users using the common cabling.
6. TRANSFERABILITY
6.1 The Fibre Broadband Services may be transferable between telecommunications lines where there is a change of property address and a new line is being installed, subject to the Fibre Broadband Services being supported at the new premises as per clauses 2.1 and 2.2.
6.2 Your Fibre Broadband Service User Name is not transferable on a telecommunications line that has not been enabled for Fibre Broadband Services by Aimsnet.
7. PRODUCT REGRADES
7.1 Speed of service upgrades between our range of Fibre Broadband Services take between 1 and 5 working days to process from the order being received.
7.2 Speed of service downgrades between our range of Fibre Broadband Services will occur at the next billing date.
8. HARDWARE
8.1 You acknowledge that some routers may not be compatible with the Fibre Broadband Service and that you may have to purchase an alternative router at your own cost in order to be able to access the Fibre Broadband Service.
8.2 For the avoidance of doubt, we can only offer support and assistance in respect of Aimsnet supplied routers. If you choose to purchase a router from a third party, you will be responsible for ensuring that you have access to appropriate support and assistance in respect of that router.
8.3 All Fibre Broadband routers that you purchase from us are covered by a one-year warranty.
9. FAULT REPORTING
9.1 Any fault(s) you may detect in relation to your Fibre Broadband Services must be reported to us as soon as possible by calling Technical Support on 0207 362 8888 or visiting http://www.aimsnet.co.uk/Contactus
10. TERMINATION
10.1 Subject to clause 10.2, you may end the Agreement at any time before the Service is activated and available for you to use.
10.2 The following cancellation charges shall apply for orders which have not yet been activated but which have been processed and sent to BT: a) where cancellation is greater than 2 days before your order delivery date, a charge of £17.74 (plus VAT) will be payable; and b) where cancellation is 2 days before order delivery date, a cancellation charge of £85 (plus VAT) will apply. Cancellations which are made less than 2 days before the order delivery date will be governed by clause 10.3.
10.3 Once the Fibre Broadband Services have been activated and are available for you to use, you may only end this Agreement by notice equal to the Minimum Cancellation Notice Period of 14 days to expire any time on or after the Minimum Service Period of 12 months.
10.4 If we or BT deem that your telecommunications line is not capable, or becomes incapable, of supporting the Fibre Broadband Services we reserve the right to terminate the Fibre Broadband Services immediately without notice and issue a refund for any Fibre Broadband Services not provided. Examples include; a) your line is too far away from the telephone exchange; b) your line is directly connected to the telephone exchange rather than via a street cabinet; or c) the quality of your line is too poor.
10.5 Notwithstanding the provisions of clause 10.4, we reserve the right to move you onto a different product at no additional cost to you, if, in our reasonable opinion, it would mean that your service would perform better, provided always that such alternative product shall be of equivalent price to your existing product.
10.6 Where the Fibre Broadband Service is terminated within the Minimum Service Period, you will remain liable for the charges for the remainder of the term. This will be in addition to any cease charges for termination of the Fibre Broadband Service itself (currently £5.22 excluding VAT).
11. EFFECTS OF TERMINATION
11.1 In the event that you cancel or change ownership of your BT telephone line, your Fibre Broadband Service will be terminated, and any remaining Charges will become immediately due and payable.
11.2 In the event of termination of the Fibre Broadband Services, any disconnection work will take place at your street cabinet and not your premises. Please note that the SSFP and any data extension kit will not be removed. These items are compatible with ADSL services, however, while the SSFP is in place that will be the only point of connection for any ADSL services, and you will not be able to use any micro-filters on any other telephone connection points.
11.3 Any Equipment purchased or provided by us to enable you to receive the Fibre Broadband Service must also be returned at our request, in the pre-paid postage jiffy bag that we send to you, in accordance with instructions given in our RMA document. Upon receipt of the completed document, we will credit you with any payment we have received from you for such Equipment (where applicable).
12. CHARGES
12.1 We reserve the right to raise an 'Abortive Visit Charge' of £85 + VAT if: a) entry to your premises is refused; or b) no access can be gained despite you having agreed that we or any other person may access your premises.
12.2 In the event that an Engineer is called to repair a fault to your Fibre Broadband Services, we will implement the following procedure: a) when you call into our Support team to register a fault with your service we will conduct an investigation into the fault. During this process you may be asked to check and advise on details about your service. This will include directions to carry out simple tests and to report back the status following the tests. All of the requests will be explained and it is your responsibility to carry out the tests at your premises and provide accurate feedback; and b) based on your feedback, we will decide if an Engineer visit is required and our Support team will advise you of the chosen course of action and associated costs. You can then decide if you want the Engineer visit to go ahead.
12.3 The latest list of charges for an Engineer visit and the description of each charge is as follows: a) Base charge: this covers the visit from an Engineer who will be provided with details about your fault. A cost of £110 (ex VAT) will be charged if the cause of the fault lies within your premises, occurring after the service point and therefore not the fault of BT's service. Possible causes include faults within the modem/router, internal wiring issues etc; b) Internal wiring: where a fault is likely to be in your wiring. Cost: £65.00 (ex VAT). If the Engineer has to fix internal wiring this cost will be charged to you; and c) Internal equipment: Where the issue is found to be caused by your modem/router and the Engineer fixes the fault on the device. Cost: £65.00 (ex VAT)
13. DATA PROTECTION
13.1 In order to provide you with the Fibre Broadband Service, we need to share your personal details with our suppliers, including but not limited to, BT Openreach.
13.2 BT Openreach may write to or call you directly about any changes to your order fulfilment or repair of your Fibre Broadband Service or to confirm the time of their Engineers’ arrival for appointments.
13.3 Both we and our suppliers will comply with the Data Protection Act with regards to any data we hold about you.