Southern Phone Fair Use Policy
By using any Southern Phone service, as part of our Standard Form of Agreement (Customer Terms), you agree to comply with the terms of this Fair Use Policy. Defined terms have the meaning given to them in the Customer Terms available here.
Purpose
Our Fair Use Policy is designed to ensure that all our customers have access to their services, and to safeguard the security and integrity of the networks we use and the quality and reliability of our services. It also sets out the rules that apply to you which are required by our upstream suppliers or third party content providers. When we refer to our network we mean the networks, software and infrastructure owned by us and our suppliers to provide a telecommunication service.
Application
Our Fair Use Policy applies to ensure that you use your Southern Phone service in a lawful, fair and responsible way and not unreasonably. ‘Unreasonable use’ means use that’s unintended, unacceptable or excessive. Our Fair Use Policy also extends to anyone who uses your Southern Phone service.
A Southern Phone service may include a mobile, fixed phone or data (using the nbn® network or ADSL or mobile broadband) service.
If you’re a residential customer, our services are for your personal use only.
If you’re a business customer, our services are for your use in the ordinary course of business.
Unintended use
You mustn’t use any Southern Phone service in an unintended way. Your use of a service will be considered unintended if you use it in a way which isn’t for the purpose which the service was intended for, such as using the service in a way that isn’t personal use (if you’re a residential customer), or not ordinary business use (if you’re a business customer).
Unintended use includes (but isn’t limited to) the following:
a. using the service in a way that a reasonable person wouldn’t regard as ordinary;
b. if you’re a residential customer, using the service in a way which isn’t reasonably regarded as ordinary personal use (e.g. using a residential service for commercial purposes);
c. if you’re a business customer, using the service in way which isn’t reasonably regarded as ordinary business use;
d. using the service for re-supply to another person or in a way that an ordinary person would reasonably regard as commercial use, unless your service was described to be used for commercial purposes; or
e. using the service fraudulently or for the purposes of arbitrage or in a way which commercially disadvantages Southern Phone, eg by using, promoting or enabling the re-purposing of the service for excessive or automated re-routing, SIM boxing, line holding, auto-calling, simultaneous calling or continuous call forwarding, spam or bulk messaging, disguising the origin of a use or communication (including by calling 13xx or 18xx numbers to make indirect calls through other providers, eg through a calling card), monitoring calls, data or traffic, or for anything which is not standard person-to-person communication.
Unacceptable use
You mustn’t use Southern Phone services in an unacceptable way. Your use of a service will be considered unacceptable if you use the service, or any equipment or device (which has not been approved by us) with a service, for any fraudulent, malicious, illegal or unlawful purpose or in any way which creates risks to the performance, security or integrity of any network or system or to the health or safety of any person, or improperly interferes with the network or another person's use of our services.
Unacceptable use for any fraudulent, malicious, illegal or unlawful purpose includes (but isn’t limited to) the following:
a. procuring or using a service with a fraudulent or false identity, or using the service for fraudulent purposes, or in a way that’s likely to mislead or deceive;
b. using the service in any way to gain an improper or illegal access to another person’s private, personal, commercially sensitive or confidential information;
c. infringing any person’s intellectual property or other rights;
d. using the service to send unsolicited or unwanted commercial electronic messages not in accordance with, or otherwise in breach of, the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) and Spam Regulations 2021 (Cth);
e. using the service in any way to store, send, distribute, publish or make available any indecent, obscene, offensive, menacing, pornographic, illegal, defamatory or confidential material, or material that incites violence or hatred against any person or class or persons or which could give rise to civil or criminal proceedings;
f. doing any act or thing which is illegal, fraudulent or otherwise prohibited under any applicable Commonwealth, State or Territory law or which is in breach of any code, standard or other requirement of any other competent authority; or
g. authorising, aiding, abetting, encouraging or inciting any other person to do or attempt to do any of the above.
Unacceptable use that creates risk to, or interferes with, our network or another person’s use or their safety includes (but isn’t limited to) the following:
a. using any equipment or device (including a SIM card) on our network which has not been authorised by us. However, BYO routers and mobile devices used with SIM-only plans are permitted in accordance with the Customer Terms;
b. adversely affecting another person’s use of or access to the service or the network;
c. abnormal or excessive use of your service which may result in significant network congestion or disruption;
d. compromising the security or integrity of any network or system, or causing interference, disruption, congestion or sub-optimal network performance;
e. probing, scanning or testing the vulnerability of a network or system, or breaching the security or authentication measures for a network or service; or
f. accessing, downloading, storing, sending or distributing viruses, spy software or other harmful material; or
g. authorising, aiding, abetting, encouraging or inciting any other person to do or attempt to do any of the above.
Excessive Use (mobile services only)
You mustn’t use our mobile plans in a way that’s excessive unless they’ve been advertised as providing unlimited calls or usage. Unless we say otherwise, we consider excessive use as using more than 4,000 minutes of calls each month on a mobile service, or more than 4,000 SMS and/or MMS each month on a mobile service. We may at any time change the volumes considered excessive on our mobile services. If this is the case, we’ll notify you in accordance with the Customer Terms.
Internet Use
Where your Southern Phone service allows you to access the Internet, you must ensure your access or use of the Internet (whether by yourself or by any third party who uses your service) is lawful and is not in breach of this Fair Use Policy.
We may, in our discretion or where directed by a regulatory or other law enforcement body, block access to, remove, or refuse to post any content which you attempt to post which we consider offensive, indecent, unlawful or otherwise inappropriate regardless of whether such content is actually unlawful. However, we have no obligation to proactively review or to remove content.
We may also be required by a copyright owner to take down or remove infringing material from our servers or to prevent users from accessing such infringing material from the Internet.
Breach of the Fair Use Policy
We reserve the right to apply our Fair Use Policy at our discretion and on a case-by-case basis, acting reasonably. We are not liable for any damages of any nature whatsoever suffered by you or any third person resulting from the exercise of our rights under this Fair Use Policy, to the extent the loss is caused or contributed to by you.
While we have no obligation to do so, we and our suppliers may from time to time monitor your use of the network and the content you publish to ensure that you comply with this Fair Use Policy.
If you breach any part of this Fair Use Policy, unless we’re prohibited by law or need to take urgent action, we’ll contact you and, if appropriate, ask you to explain and modify your use of the service within a reasonable period of time. However, where we need to take urgent action such as for illegality, or if you don’t modify your use of the service within a reasonable period of time, we reserve the right to modify, suspend or cancel your service immediately and without notice to you.
We may also inform appropriate government and regulatory authorities of suspected illegal or wrongful conduct, including to provide certain identifying material when required to do so, and take any other action we deem appropriate.
Upon cancelling your service, we reserve the right to delete any files, programs, data and email messages (where we’ve supplied you with an email address) associated with your account. We may charge a reconnection charge following action under this Fair Use Policy unless it resulted from our mistake or causes beyond your control.
Your responsibility for maintaining security
While we make reasonable efforts to ensure the security of our network, we can’t and don’t guarantee that viruses and other detrimental programs will not be distributed via our network.
You’re responsible for helping maintain the security of your Southern Phone service, including protecting your computer, devices and any connected networks against higher level computer programs (such as viruses, worms, trojans and other malicious programs) and lower level Denial of Service (DOS) attacks that can be distributed or propagated via the internet, including email. Such protection methods may include firewalls, an appropriate policy regarding email attachments, and the latest virus scanning software.
Changes to our Fair Use Policy
We may change our Fair Use Policy from time to time in accordance with the Customer Terms. If we’re required to notify you of a change, continued use of your Southern Phone service after such notice will mean that you agree with the change.
Report a breach
If you suspect a breach of our Fair Use Policy, let us know by calling 13 14 16.
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