Overview 

We provide satellite broadband services through the KA-Sat satellite, which is owned and managed by Viasat Inc. 

Brdy is responsible for all ground services that directly relate to the customer. e.g. sales, billing, support, installation and logistics. 

Like most domestic terrestrial broadband services, the “Network” is a shared and ‘best effort’ network; at any given time, subscribers within a given geographic area must share available network capacity. 

We aim to provide each subscriber with a “fair share” of that capacity while providing all subscribers with a high-quality online experience. If you exceed peak usage or monthly thresholds, you should expect to see your service slow down, especially at peak times, in order to allow fair access to other lower users. You can identify whether your service is being impacted by FUP/traffic management via the Customer Portal. 

We employ Network management practices designed to prevent any user from placing a disproportionate demand on Network resources. Some of these practices are used only when the Network is congested; others are used more generally. 

Traffic levels on the Network usually have no significant impact on the user experience. At other times, however, too much demand from too many users in the same period may lead to congestion (“Congestion”), where total demand exceeds that available on the Network. 

During these times, Congestion management practices (see Part II for more detail) will be applied first to users who have already used more than 50% of the traffic included in their Consumption Profile. Through this practice, we aim to treat traffic in a manner that reduces the impact on the user experience and prevents a subscriber from exceeding his or her “fair share” of available capacity. 

The goal of these measures is for the vast majority of users to enjoy a better overall service experience than they otherwise would without these practices. 

CONGESTION MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

1.Congestion management overview

Under normal traffic conditions, it is not necessary to employ congestion management practices. However, while network capacity is abundant, it is not unlimited. This means that some congestion at some peak times is inevitable – and that is when the congestion management practices make sure that the load is managed to give the best possible experience to most number of people using the Network. 

Congestion typically occurs in the link between the subscriber terminal and the gateway earth station via the satellite. In order to determine if the link is congested, traffic is monitored in each spot beam channel. If the instantaneous traffic load exceeds the available capacity of the spot beam channel, the congestion management algorithm described below is implemented.

2. Mitigating the impact of network congestion on the user experience

Internet traffic is normally “bursty” in nature, i.e. traffic flows generally are not constant or continuous, but rather are characterised by “bursts” of data. On occasion, too much demand from too many users in the same period in a given spot beam channel results in a total instantaneous demand for capacity exceeding, on a temporary basis, the capacity available within the channel. 

On such occasions, the Network can experience Congestion. Congestion most typically occurs during the Network’s “peak” usage hours which generally can be expected to be from about 17:00 to 00:00 local time at the user’s location, depending on the day of the week (“Peak Hours”). 

Congestion may also occur during certain periods when usage is “unmetered” (such as the “night free zone”). 

Congestion, and the resulting transmission delay, impacts the user experience with respect to some types of applications more than others. For example, a delay in the rendering of a web page may be noticeable to a user waiting for the content to appear on their screen. On the other hand, a user downloading a bulk file (e.g. a software update) may be less impacted if the download takes longer during Congestion than it otherwise would, since the subscriber may already know that the download requires some time to complete. 

Customers should also be aware that the public Internet itself suffers from frequent bottlenecks and congestion and, if users experience ‘slowness’, it shouldn’t automatically be assumed as being related to congestion on the network. 

Our goal is to manage the Network to minimize the impact of Congestion on traffic. To achieve this aim, the congestion management algorithm is designed to reduce the traffic load, while giving a preference to services and applications that require less transmission bandwidth, such as web browsing and email. 

During periods of Congestion, bandwidth intensive applications such as video streaming and file downloading may be affected more than other applications. As a result, the quality of video streaming may be reduced and/or buffering may occur. In addition, file downloads may take longer to complete during periods of Congestion. 

Under more severe Congestion, all applications may need to be slowed, and in those instances, the time to download web pages may take longer. Despite the fact that we are in no way involved with the information transmitted through the Network, following a specific request of a Public Authority, we may block the access to specific URLs. 

We do not intentionally block any particular form of traffic (unless explicitly specified in the characteristics of a given service profile) but may block certain TCP/UDP ports and/or specific protocols that we reasonably believe may represent a security threat to the Network.

3. Heavy Users

A “Heavy User” is a user (or a small group of users) consuming a disproportionate amount of a Network’s resources. We will monitor both overall Network performance and individual resource consumption to determine if any user is a Heavy User, who could potentially disrupt or degrade the Network and/or its usage by other users. 

We reserve the right to immediately restrict, suspend or terminate Heavy Users’ Service Accounts without further notice. 

WEB BROWSING AND EMAIL 

During a period of service limitation, to be certain to fully experience web browsing and email, the user needs to follow all of the guidelines below (otherwise no service will be available): 

• Virtual Private Network (VPN) and remote access software must be turned off; 

• A web browser application has to be used. Only static (non-video, non-music) content viewed within a web page application qualifies as web browsing and/or email. Content viewed in other applications may not be considered web pages or email (e.g. Android, iPhone or iPad apps other than web browsers); 
• Web Browser URLs must begin with http:// or https://. This means ftp:// and other types of sites that launch external applications will not be classified as web traffic; 
• Email attachments must be 10 MB in size or less.