Fair Access Policy

To ensure fair Internet access for all satellite broadband subscribers connecting via KA-SAT services, onwave maintains a Fair Access Policy (FAP). This policy establishes an equitable balance in Internet access for satellite broadband subscribers. onwave assigns a download threshold to each service plan that limits the amount of data that may be downloaded during a typical day. Any subscriber who exceeds this limit will experience a temporary reduction of speed.

Explanation:
The Fair Access Policy is straightforward. Based on an analysis of customer usage data, onwave has established a Volume Equivalent threshold for each of the service plans, which are well above normal typical usage rates.

Volume Equivalent is the aggregated volume of traffic measured in GByte (1GByte = 1000Mbytes) and calculated as the sum of the volume of traffic in the forward (download) and the volume of the traffic in the return (upload) links:

Volume Equivalent = (Volume on Forward Link) + (Volume on Return Link)

A user's permitted Volume Equivalent is measured within discrete time slots. Time slots work on the principle of a sliding window, which means that as time lapses, historic usage is updated.

The Sliding Time Window (STW) is a look back at a customer's Volume Equivalent over fixed periods of time, as follows:

• 1 Hour (1h)
• 4 Hours (4hs)
• 1 Day (1d), applies only to the 10+ Package
• 1 Week (1w), not applicable to the 10+ Package
• 4 Weeks (4w)

For each STW, a maximum allowance of Volume Equivalent is predetermined. In case a user's generated traffic exceeds predetermined thresholds in the given STW, the following scenarios will be experienced:

• Limited peak rates (see associated FAP tables)
• Potential protocol limitation: FTTP, HTTP, POP3\SMTP, IMAP and DNS on UDP only will be guaranteed (4w only)
• An end user will continue to experience FAP limitation until traffic consumption returns within the allowed amounts for that given STW
• In case multiple thresholds are exceeded at the same time, the most stringent one will be applied until full restoration to nominal peaks occurs

During a recovery period that has FAP applied, the satellite broadband service may still be used, but speeds will be slower. Web browsing for example, will be significantly slower than subscribers' normal browsing experience. Subscribers will return to normal download speeds after the recovery period, as long as the use of bandwidth-intensive activities is limited, such as:

• Streaming of movies
• Use of entertainment and media websites including but not limited to, YouTube, BBCiPlayer, RTE player
• Online gaming activities

Click HERE to view FAP tables.