Castnet - Terms & Conditions

General Notice:

Thank you for reading Castnet’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). By accessing this website, or by contracting with us for service, you agree, without limitation or qualification, to be bound by this policy and the terms and conditions it contains, as well as any other additional terms, conditions, rules or policies which are displayed to you in connection with this service/website.

The purpose of this AUP is to comply with the relevant laws of the Republic; to specify to clients and users of our service/website what activities and online behaviour are considered an unacceptable use of the service/website; to protect the integrity of our network and to specify the consequences that may flow from undertaking such prohibited activities.

This document contains a number of legal obligations which you are presumed to be familiar with. As such, we encourage you to read this document thoroughly and direct any queries to our client services/legal department at +2744 150 0300.

Castnet respects the rights of our clients and users of our services to freedom of speech and expression; access to information; privacy; human dignity; religion, belief and opinion in accordance with our constitution. We undertake not to interfere with any of those rights unless required to do so by law; unless those rights are exercised for unlawful purposes; or unless the exercise of those rights threatens to cause harm to another person or affect the integrity of our network.

ISPA membership and Code of Conduct:

Castnet confirms that in compliance with section 72 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, Castnet is a member of the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) and has adopted and implemented the association’s official Code of Conduct, which can be viewed at https://ispa.org.za/code-of-conduct/

Unlawful Use:

Castnet’s services/website may only be used for lawful purposes and activities. We prohibit any use of our website/network including the transmission, storage and distribution of any material or content using our network that violates any law or regulation of the Republic.

This includes:

1. Any violation of local and international laws prohibiting child pornography; obscenity; discrimination (including racial, gender or religious slurs) and hate speech; or speech designed to incite violence or hatred, or threats to cause bodily harm.
2. Any activity designed to defame, abuse, stalk, harass or physically threaten any individual in the Republic or beyond its borders; including any attempt to link to, post, transmit or otherwise distribute any inappropriate or defamatory material.
3. Any violation of Intellectual Property laws including materials protected by local and international copyright, trademarks and trade secrets. Moreover Castnet cannot be held liable if you make any unlawful use of any multimedia content accessed through the search facility provided by Castnet’s network, or otherwise available through access to our network, whether for commercial or noncommercial purposes.
4. Any violation of the individual’s right to privacy, including any effort to collect personal data of third parties without their consent.
5. Any fraudulent activity whatsoever, including dubious financial practices, such as pyramid schemes; the impersonation of another subscriber without their consent; or any attempt to enter into a transaction with Castnet on behalf of another subscriber without their consent.
6. Any violation of the exchange control laws of the Republic.
7. Any activity that results in the sale, transmission or distribution of pirated or illegal software.
8. Failing to respond to a request by a recipient of unsolicited mail to be removed from any mailing or direct marketing list and continuing to send unsolicited mail following such a request for removal. Where any user resides outside of the Republic, permanently or temporarily, such user will be subject to the laws of the country in which s/he is currently resident and which apply. On presentation of a legal order to do so, or under obligation through an order for mutual foreign legal assistance, Castnet will assist foreign law enforcement agencies (LEA) in the investigation and prosecution of a crime committed using Castnet’s resources, including the provisioning of all personal identifiable data.

Prohibited Activities:

The following sections outline activities that are considered an unacceptable use of Company’s services/network/website and also detail the guidelines for acceptable use of certain facilities/services, as the case may be.

Threats to Network Security

Any activity which threatens the functioning, security and/or integrity of Castnet’s network is unacceptable.

This includes:

1. Any efforts to attempt to gain unlawful and unauthorised access to the network or circumvent any of the security measures established by Castnet for this goal;
2. Any effort to use Castnet’s equipment to circumvent the user authentication or security of any host, network or account (“cracking” or “hacking”);
3. Forging of any TCP-IP packet header (spoofing) or any part of the header information in an email or a newsgroup posting;
4. Any effort to breach or attempt to breach the security of another user or attempt to gain access to any other person’s computer, software, or data without the knowledge and consent of such person;
5. Any activity which threatens to disrupt the service offered by Castnet through “denial of service attacks”, flooding of a network, or overloading a service or any unauthorised probes (“scanning” or “nuking”) of others’ networks;
6. Any activity which in any way threatens the security of the network by knowingly posting, transmitting, linking to or otherwise distributing any information or software which contains a virus; Trojan horse; worm, lock, mail bomb, cancelbot or other harmful, destructive or disruptive component.
7. Any unauthorised monitoring of data or traffic on the network without Castnet’s explicit, written consent.
8. Any unsolicited mass mailing activity including direct marketing; spam and chain letters for commercial or other purposes, without the consent of the recipients of those mails.

Public Space & Third Party Content & sites:

In reading this AUP or in signing a service contract with Castnet, you acknowledge that Castnet has no power to control the content of the information passing over the Internet and its applications, including e-mail; chatrooms; news groups; or other similar fora, and that Castnet cannot be held responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any of the abovementioned content, in any way for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of, or in connection with your use of, or reliance on, any such content. Our services also offer access to numerous third party webpages. You acknowledge that we exercise absolutely no control over such third party content, or sites and in such cases, our network is merely a conduit or means of access and transmission. This includes, but is not limited to, third party content contained on or accessible through the Castnet network websites and web pages or sites displayed as search results or contained within a directory of links on the Castnet network. It remains your responsibility to review and evaluate any such content, and that any and all risk associated with the use of, or reliance on, such content rests with you. Access to public Internet spaces, such as bulletin boards, Usenet groups, chat rooms and moderated forums is entirely voluntary and at your own risk. Castnet employees do not moderate any of these services, or your communications, transmissions or use of these services. We do not undertake any responsibility for any content contained therein, or for any breaches of your right to privacy that you may experience as a result of accessing such spaces.

Usenet Newsgroups:

The client is responsible for determining and familiarizing himself or herself with the written policies of a given newsgroup before posting to it. The client must comply with these guidelines at all times which can be obtained from other users of the newsgroup upon request, or from the group’s administrators/moderators.

The following are prohibited practices with regard to Usenet newsgroups and Castnet reserves the right to delete and/or cancel posts which violate the following conditions:

• Excessive cross-posting of the same article to multiple newsgroups.
• Posting of irrelevant or off-topic material to newsgroups (also known as USENET spam).
• Posting binaries to a non-binary newsgroup.
• Posting adverts, solicitations, or any other commercial messages unless the guidelines of the newsgroup in question explicitly permit them.

Castnet does not monitor nor control the content that is available or unavailable via newsgroup and/or usenet services. The services offered by Castnet in respect to usenet services is merely a convenience to Castnet clients to make the use of the service more convenient. Castnet accepts no liability and has no control over the content that may or may not be available, including, but not limited to, pornography, illegally obtained movies, applications and music.

Unsolicited, Spam and Junk mail:

Spam and unsolicited bulk mail are highly problematic practices. They affect the use and enjoyment of services by others and often compromise network security. Castnet will take swift and firm action against any user engaging in any of the following unacceptable practices:

1. Sending unsolicited bulk mail for marketing or any other purposes (political, religious or commercial) to people who have not consented to receiving such mail;
2. Operating or maintaining mailing lists without the express permission of all recipients listed;
3. Failing to promptly remove from lists invalid or undeliverable addresses or addresses of unwilling recipients;
4. Using Castnet’s service to collect responses from unsolicited e-mail sent from accounts on other Internet hosts or e-mail services, that violate this AUP or the AUP of any other Internet service provider;
5. Including Castnet’s name in the header or by listing an IP address that belongs to Castnet in any unsolicited email sent through Castnet’s network or not.
6. Failure to secure a client’s mail server against public relay as a protection to themselves and the broader Internet community. Public relay occurs when a mail server is accessed by a third party from another domain and utilised to deliver mails, without the authority or consent of the owner of the mail-server. Mail servers that are unsecured against public relay often become abused by unscrupulous operators for spam delivery and upon detection such delivery must be disallowed. Castnet reserves the right to examine users’ mail servers to confirm that no mails are being sent from the mail server through public relay and the results of such checks can be made available to the user. Castnet also reserves the right to examine the mail servers of any users using Castnet’s mail servers for “smarthosting” (when the user relays its mail via a Castnet mail server to a mail server of its own) or similar services at any time to ensure that the servers are properly secured against public relay. All relay checks will be done in strict accordance with Castnet’s privacy policy.

Fibre Services:

Fibre Broadband Access is supplied as a best effort service by the Fibre Line Provider. Warranties on equipment/hardware supplied during the installation are held by the Fibre Line Provider or their chosen Representative and remain their property. In order to use the Fibre Data purchased from Castnet a Fibre router/modem is required, this router/modem needs to be purchased by the client. Only approved (ICASA, SABS) hardware is permitted to be used, un-approved hardware connected to the Fibre Line by the client which proves to be interfering/causes damage to the service provided by the Fibre Line Provider/Castnet or its infrastructure is not permitted. Any costs which arise due to damage and repairs caused by the connection of un-approved hardware by the client will be for the clients account. Areas marked as available on the map may not be Fibre ready at your particular address due to a number of factors. Pre-orders do not guarantee that Fibre will be available at your particular address once the planned project has been completed. Should we not be able to proceed with your application we will advise you thereof. Installations are typically completed within +- 30 days, this timeframe is however not guaranteed. Castnet only offer Fibre to the Home services through our Fibre Line Providers at this time. Fibre line installations and connections are subject to an installation and connection fee which is prescribed by the Fibre Line Provider. Additional fees may apply should trenching or additional cabling be required to complete the installation.

Additional fees may also apply should a re-installation or indoor transfer (move line within the same premises) be required. Castnet, the Fibre Line Provider or its Contractor will make any additional charges known to the client and the client will be required to accept or reject these charges before the order is completed. Please note that should the service be ordered and the incorrect address is supplied, the client will be responsible for all charges relating to the order placed at the incorrect address.

An additional fee may be charged as prescribed by the Fibre Provider for re-grading the speed of a fibre line as well as outdoor transfers (new address) and transfers between Internet Service Providers. Downgrades may require 30 days’ notice depending on the Fibre Provider, the earliest date for a downgrade request will be displayed in the Client Control Panel when submitting the request. Cancellations for fibre lines are only submitted at the end of each month, the cancellation request must be submitted via the Client Control Panel at least a calendar month before the cancellation date, the earliest available cancellation date will be shown in the Client Control Panel. Cancellation requests which do not adhere to a calendar months notice requirement are subject to Early Termination Fees which will need to be settled before the cancellation request is processed, this fee is prescribed by the Fibre Line Provider. Transfers between Service Providers are handled in the same manner as a new installation and are typically completed within +- 30 day, this timeframe is however not guaranteed.

An additional fee of up to R2 000.00 may be charged on faults logged which are found to be caused by faulty hardware or user error. This amount will be charged to your account once we are advised of the charges by the Fibre Line Provider.

By completing the order it is deemed that consent has been received from the landlord, owner or body corporate for the installation of the service.

The available capacity on the network is shared between all users of Castnet bandwidth. Acceptable Usage Policies are attached to Uncapped Services. Capped services whilst the majority of the time will remain untouched may be shaped or throttled should the demand on the network and available capacity be affected. Capped services will generally receive priority through-put on our network provided there is no rise in demand or extenuating circumstances affecting the performance of the network.

Capped Services:

Rollover of Data: Unused data rolls over to the following renewal month (calendar month) for a period of 3 months. Rolled over data will be used first from the 1st of each month and thereafter the renewal data will be used. Rollover data consists of unused renewal data and unused top up data. The most recent rolled over data will be used first, working on a system of last in first out.

EXAMPLE:

The monthly renewal on a 10GB service is 10GB. The monthly renewal on a service is 10GB. In the last 3 months the following amounts of unused data have rolled over, March 1GB, April 2GB, May 2GB. On the 1st of June the service will renew and 10GB will be allocated together with the 4GB which has rolled over from March to May. Usage from the 1st of June will be deducted from the rolled over data from May then April then March, only once the rolled over data of 4GB has been exhausted will the renewal data of 10GB start being used. Should there be any unused data by the end of June, this data will rollover to July and the process will begin again. Should usage not reach the rolled over data for March it will fall away.

Rollover of Data is only applicable to services which are paid up to date and are renewed monthly. If your debit order or credit card payment fails for any reason you will not be able to use any Rollover Data until all services are paid up to date. Should you cancel your service any accumulated rollover data will fall away and cannot be reinstated if the cancellation date has passed and the service is restored.

Uncapped Services:

Uncapped services do not carry a usage limit (cap) but speeds will be limited to the speed of the Fibre line. The service is for personal use only and may not be resold, shared or used for commercial purposes. The use of our uncapped services by WISP’s (wireless internet service provider) is strictly prohibited. All uncapped products carry an Acceptable Use Policy which can be found here, please take the time to read through it as important information is communicated there-in. By accepting the Terms and Conditions, you also agree to the afore-mentioned AUP (Acceptable Use Policy).

Uncapped services are billed on a calendar month basis (1st to last day of the month) and payment is due in advance by the 1st of each month.

Hosting:

Castnet offers unlimited bandwidth (web traffic) usage on Shared Hosting platforms. However, this is subject to reasonable and responsible usage, as determined at Castnet’ discretion. Shared Hosting is designed for serving personal hosting requirements or that of small enterprises, and not medium to large enterprises. Castnet reserves the right to move Clients deemed to have excessive bandwidth usage to a Cloud product, which will better suit their requirements. Clients will be given notice as such, and will be informed of any cost implications.

Disk Space on Shared Hosting may only be used for Website Content, Emails and related System Files. General data storage, archiving or file sharing of documents, files or media not directly related to the website content is strictly prohibited. Unauthorised storage or distribution of copyrighted materials is prohibited, via FTP hosts or any other means.

For Shared Hosting, Castnet will implement security updates, software patches and other updates or upgrades from time to time, to maintain the best performance, at their sole discretion. Castnet is under no obligation to effect such upgrades, or to rectify any impact such changes could potentially have to Shared Hosting Clients.

Castnet will not be liable or responsible for the backing up, restoration or loss of data under any circumstances. Clients are solely responsible for ensuring their data is regularly backed up and for restoring such backups in the event of data loss or corruption.

Castnet prohibits Clients from doing the following on hosting platforms administered by Castnet:

• Running applications that are not production-ready. Any applications on the hosting platform must be optimized with respect to memory usage and must have appropriate data indexing.
• Running applications with inadequate security controls.
• Generating significant side-channel traffic from an application, whether by design or otherwise. Databases should be stored locally, and remote content should be cached.
• Failure to maintain proper “housekeeping” on a shared server including storing or generating useless content, including comment spam, unused cache files, log file and database entries.
• Storing malicious content, such as malware or links to malware.
• Monopolizing server resources, including CPU time, memory, network and disk bandwidth.
• Maintaining long-running processes and long-running database queries.
• Storing or running back-door shells, mass mailing scripts, proxy servers, web spiders, phishing content, or peer-to-peer software.
• Sending bulk mail of any form, particularly mail that cannot be efficiently delivered due to volume or incorrect addresses.
• Using poor passwords.
• Sharing security credentials with untrusted parties.
• Running Torrents for download or Seed Servers.
• Running TOR (or other Online Anonymity Services).
• Otherwise circumventing the Acceptable Use Policy or intended use of the product.

Protection of Minors:

Castnet prohibits clients from using Castnet’s service to harm or attempt to harm a minor, including, but not limited to, by hosting, possessing, disseminating, distributing or transmitting material that is unlawful, including child pornography.

Privacy and Confidentiality

Castnet respects the privacy and confidentiality of our clients and users of our service.

User Responsibilities:

Clients are responsible for any misuse of Company’s services that occurs through the client’s account. It is the client’s responsibility to ensure that unauthorised persons do not gain access to or misuse Castnet’s service.

Castnet urges clients not to reply to unsolicited mail or “spam”, not to click on any suggested links provided in the unsolicited mail. Doing so remains the sole responsibility of the client and Castnet cannot be held liable for the client being placed on any bulk mailing lists as a result.

Where the client has authorised a minor to use any of the Castnet’s services or access its websites, you accept that as the parent/legal guardian of that minor, you are fully responsible for: the online conduct of such minor; controlling the minor’s access to and use of any services or websites; and the consequences of any misuse by the minor, including but not limited to transactions entered into by the minor using such access.

Castnet cannot be held liable for any business dealings you have with any third parties on the Internet, including any vendors, or advertisers found on, or through, the Castnet network. Further, Castnet assumes no responsibility whatsoever for any charges you or any user of your account incurs when making purchases or other transactions in this manner. Further, the responsibility for ensuring compliance with all applicable customs and exchange control laws in connection with any such transactions shall be the client’s.

Notice and Take-down Procedures:

Castnet confirms that it has a procedure in place for the notice and take-down of illegal material. In compliance with section 77 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act (No. 25 of 2002) Castnet’s designated agent for this process can be reached at (010) 500 1200 or at: complaints@ispa.org.za, P.O.Box 518, Noordwyk, 1687. The notice and take-down procedure can be viewed at https://ispa.org.za/code-of-conduct/.

Take-down notice email: complaints@ispa.org.za

Take-down notice information and form: https://ispa.org.za/tdn/

Clients are also notified of the content and procedures of the ISPA Code of Conduct (https://ispa.org.za/code-of-conduct/) which may be used against any Internet service provider who fails to comply with the code of conduct. We urge you to familiarise yourselves with this code.

Complaints and procedures

PO Box 518

Noordwyk

1687

Tel: 010 500 1200

Take-down notice email: complaints@ispa.org.za

Take-down notice information and form: https://ispa.org.za/tdn/

It is the client’s responsibility to familiarise himself or herself with the procedure set out below and report any cases of violation of this AUP to Castnet’s designated complaints handling agent.

Please note that Castnet cannot handle complaints concerning networks or users that do not have service contracts with us or our affiliates, or are outside of our control.

In order for Castnet to thoroughly investigate the complaint and take appropriate action, all complaints must be in writing, via fax or e-mail and contain as much information as possible, including, but not limited to:

• the origin of abuse or offence, including the website, full mail headers, relevant logfile extracts etc;
• any contact details for the source of the complaint;
• A brief explanation why the incident is considered to be an offence.

Castnet discourages anonymous complaints being made via this service, and urges complainants to supply their name and contact details to us. Such information will not be released, except where required by law enforcement. Anonymous complaints will however be acted upon as long as sufficient detail as outlined above is supplied.

Action following breach of the AUP

Upon receipt of a complaint, or having become aware of an incident, Castnet may take any of the following steps:

• In the case of a network, inform the user’s network administrator of the incident and request the network administrator or network owner to deal address the incident in terms of this AUP and the ISPA Code of Conduct;
• In severe cases suspend access of the user’s entire network until abuse can be prevented by appropriate means;
• In the case of individual users, warn the user; suspend the user’s account and/or revoke or cancel the user’s network access privileges completely;
• In all cases, charge the offending parties for administrative costs as well as for machine and human time lost due to the incident;
• Assist other networks or website administrators in investigating credible suspicions of any activity listed in this AUP;
• Institute civil or criminal proceedings;
• Share information concerning the incident with other Internet access providers, or publish the information, and/or make available the users’ details to law enforcement agencies

Reservation and Non Waiver of Rights

Castnet reserves the right to amend or alter this policy at any time, and without notice to you. Castnet reserves the right to take action against any individuals, companies or organizations that violate any of the prohibited activities set out herein, or engage in any illegal or unlawful activity while accessing our services, to the fullest extent of the law. Castnet reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to act against other types of abuse not listed in this document and to investigate or prevent illegal activities being committed over our network. Castnet reserves the right to monitor user and network traffic for site security purposes and prevent any unauthorised attempts to tamper with our site or cause damage to our property. Castnet reserves the right to suspend, revoke or cancel Castnet’s services to the client/user if the safety and integrity of Castnet’s resources are placed at risk in continuing to provide service to the subscriber/user. Castnet reserves the right to remove any information or materials in whole or in part, that, in Castnet’s sole discretion, is deemed to be offensive, indecent, or otherwise objectionable.

Castnet does not undertake to guarantee the security of any data passing through its networks. Although Castnet will provide a “best effort” service, including regular updates on computer viruses and other threats to security of data, it is the responsibility of the communicating parties to safeguard their data, and Castnet cannot be held liable for any loss or damage arising as result of the failure to do so. Castnet does not waive its right to enforcement of this AUP at any time, or prejudice its right to take subsequent action, should Castnet fail, neglect or elect not to enforce a breach of the AUP at any time.

Fibre Installation and Connection Fee Promotion

This promotion starts on 14 June 2019 and is valid until further notice and excludes pre-orders. Castnet will pay the installation and connection fees of a new installation or transfer from another ISP on behalf of our client during this Promotion to a maximum of R3 000.00. Castnet will only cover the cost it would usually bill the client outside of this Promotion and does not cover any fees due to other ISP’s/Providers. Should the service be set to cancel or transfer to another ISP within 6 months of the activation date a cancellation fee of R999.00 will become payable before the cancellation is processed together with a calendar months notice. Should the monthly payment for the service fall into arrears the service will be cancelled and the cancellation fee of R999.00 will automatically be billed to the clients account.

Downgrades to a smaller package/service/speed from what was originally purchased will not be permitted within 6 months of the activation date.

Out of Promotion Installation and Connection Fees

Openserve R2,850.00

Frogfoot Networks R1,710.00

Vuma R2,709.00

TT Connect R1,710.00

Mitsol R2,850.00

Octotel R1,710.00

Fibrehoods R2,709.00

Evotel and Evotel North Riding R2,394.00

Maboneng Fibre Fast Internet R0.00

Maboneng Suburbs R2,394.00

Clear Access R1,710.00

SA Digital Villages Complexes R999.00

SA Digital Villages Suburbia R1,710.00

Connectivity Services at Steyn City R2,280.00

Teralink Networks R0.00

Century City Connect R0.00

Metrofibre Networx R2,280.00

Blitz R999.00

Terms of Service

This application is subject to Castnet’s Terms & Conditions available on our website and reserves the right to do a credit check on applicants. All prices are subject to change and include VAT. Installation cost must be paid on invoice.

All equipment carries a one year manufactures guarantee excluding power supplies. recommends a UPS to be used on all computer equipment and on the radio equipment. Maintenance outside the manufacturers guarantee is for the customer’s account. Rental equipment will be maintained by but needs to be insured by the customer against theft and storm damage.

The client premises equipment (CPE) remains the responsibility of the client and needs to be insured. will not be liable for the maintenance of any of the client’s hardware and/or software, unless agreed to by both parties and a quoted labor price is accepted thereof. prohibits the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) software. Anyone who fails to comply with this requirement will be permanently removed from the network. Illegal use of any networking software to bypass the standard configuration and regulation is strictly forbidden and is a criminal offence and will be prosecuted. Castnet accepts no responsibility for network downtime or loss of any materials downloaded (ebooks, audio, video, pictures and software) using our network. Such Materials may be copyrighted and use thereof without the copyright holder’s consent is illegal. Always ensure that your antivirus protection software is up to date. Does not take any responsibility for damages to any property or equipment during the install or maintenance of the equipment on your premises. Castnet reserves the right to terminate this Agreement and any service provision to a customer where there is a breach of these Terms of Use but undertakes to act reasonably in doing so. Subscribers should note that rollover of unused bandwidth is only offered with Castnet’s prepaid packages. The fixed cap subscriber will then be re-allocated bandwidth at the commencement of the next month. supplies a reliable and secure best effort service to subscribers. Subscribers are solely responsible for all actions authenticated by credentials associated with their account(s) and usage there-off including bandwidth usage. Castnet accepts no liability for any loss of data or damage suffered by subscribers by the use of subscribers’ authentication credentials. takes steps to monitor the bandwidth usage of subscribers so as to ensure that subscriber bandwidth limitations are not exceeded and will throttle users when limits are reached. The customer indemnifies in respect of any damages, loss or costs or claims instituted against arising from any application or subscription to or use of the service or breach of the terms and conditions applicable to it. Service may be cancelled by me/us by giving one (1) months notice in writing. This contract will remain in place until cancelled by either party. All equipment remains property of until fully paid for. Payments are due on or before the 5th of each month, Failure to do so will result in automated disconnection and a reconnection fee will apply. is not responsible for the client’s internal network. Our responsibility ends at the Fibre CPE.