ISDN

1. Agreement and Amendments

(1) These Terms and Conditions of use constitute an agreement (hereinafter referred to as “Agreement”) between GO p.l.c. (“GO”) and the User regarding the provision of the Integrated Services Digital Network/ISDN (“the Service”) to the User and his/her use of this service. By becoming a Subscriber to the Service and/or accessing and/or using the Service, the User acknowledges to be aware of these Terms and Conditions and agrees to be bound by and adhere to them.

(2) This Agreement, together with the Application Form, the Price List, GO’s Conditions for the Telephone Service and the Telephone Service Price List contain the entire agreement between the parties with respect to the subject-matter hereof, and supersedes all previous representations, understandings or agreements between the parties with respect hereto.

(3) The Terms and Conditions of this Agreement may be amended from time to time at GO’s sole discretion. Notification of any amendments to these Terms and Conditions will be provided to the User at least thirty (30) days prior to the proposed change/s. Such change/s may also include Service rates. Such notification shall be made, at GO’s discretion, by post to the address provided by the User to GO, or by publishing information on GO’s website referred to in clause 1(4) hereunder.

(4) The description and Terms and Conditions of the Service may be viewed at GO website.

2. The Service

(1) The Service offers dialled, high-speed data transmission, and the ability to send and receive voice, data, still and moving images through the same fully digital connections.

(2) The Service shall consist of either one of the following:

(a) ISDN Dualstream – is the ISDN ‘Basic Rate Access’ (BRA) service offered by GO as defined in Schedule 1 or

(b) ISDN Dualstream Plus – is identical to ISDN Dualstream but includes a Network Termination Plus Box (NT+), which incorporates also an analogue port, instead of a Network Termination Box (NT) or

(c) ISDN Multistream – is the ISDN ‘Primary Rate Access’ (PRA) service offered by GO as defined in Schedule 1.

(3) In addition to the Service made up of the Bearer Services and enhanced by the Teleservices listed in Schedule 1, GO also offers the possibility to the User to acquire any Supplementary Services as detailed in Schedule 1 at the charges indicated in Schedule 2.

(4) The Service shall be provided to the User on condition that:

(a) The User has installed, at the User’s own charge, any wiring (internal), sockets, modem, software or other form of equipment which may be requested by GO in order to provide the Service. The User shall in installing any of the said above, follow the instructions given by GO so as to enable connection to the Service. In the event that the User requests GO to install any wiring (internal), sockets, modem or other form equipment, then GO shall install these at a separate charge in accordance with the provisions of Clause 5. In any event GO shall not be responsible for the maintenance of any User’s equipment referred to in this Clause, nor shall GO be under any obligation to diagnose faults arising from the said User’s equipment

(b) GO has provided and carried out the installation, at the charges stipulated in Clause 5, of the following: (i) a Network Termination Box if the User has opted for ISDN Dualstream or (ii) a Network Termination Plus Box if the User has opted for ISDN Dualstream Plus or (iii) a special modem and any other equipment which may be required if the User has opted for ISDN Multistream, together with any wiring (external) and any other equipment which may be required for the provision of the Service.
Provided that the Network Termination Box/Network Termination Plus Box/special modem or any other equipment referred to in this clause 2 (4) (b) shall be installed at the User’s property but shall remain the property of GO. Provided further that the User shall report any fault in the operation of the Network Termination Box/Network Termination Plus Box/special modem or any other equipment referred to in this clause 2 (4) (b) and shall not adjust, maintain, repair, relocate, replace or remove the said Network Termination Box/Network Termination Plus Box special modem or any other equipment (or any part thereof) or permit any unauthorised person to do so.

(5) The User agrees not to connect equipment to the network over which the Service is provided that may harm the network or other Users’ equipment. In the event that the User causes such harm, the User must disconnect it immediately or allow GO to do so at the User’s expense.

(6) The provision of ADSL shall not be available to Users who make use of the Service.

3. Provision of the Service

(1) Requests made to GO relating to the provision of the Service are, unless otherwise agreed, to be made by the submission by the applicant of a duly completed and signed Application Form.

(2) GO has a right to request the person delivering the signed Application Form to produce such evidence, as GO may consider necessary in support of the Application Form.

(3) If the information given in the Application Form proves to be incomplete or incorrect, GO reserves the right not to provide the Service.

(4) If the Service has already been given and it later results that the information in the Application Form is incomplete or incorrect, GO reserves the right to remove the Service. The User shall, notwithstanding such removal, still remain liable for any charges due to GO before and as a consequence of the removal.

(5) The User shall immediately inform GO in writing of any changes in the details which have been supplied to GO in the Application Form.

(6) GO reserves the right to refuse to accept an Application Form if:

(a) the User is not creditworthy or

(b) the User or the registered user has not fully paid for another telecommunications service provided by GO or

(c) in the past GO had to terminate the User’s telecommunications service due to non-payment of Charges or

(d) the Charges for any telecommunications service provided by GO in the same Premises as that requested in the Application Form – whether provided to the User or to a third party – have not been or are not being duly paid.

4. Period of Agreement of a Service

(1) The Agreement for the provision of a Service shall commence on the day the Application Form is accepted by GO and unless previously terminated in accordance with these Conditions, it shall continue into force for an initial period of six (6) months, and shall remain in force indefinitely thereafter unless and until it is terminated by either party after giving at least fifteen (15) days written notice to the other party.

(2) The provisions in GO’s Conditions for the Telephone Service relating to Removal, Transfer, Shifting or Retention of Service and Faults shall be equally applicable to this Agreement.

(3) If the customer terminates the Agreement prior to the lapse of the contracted period, a penalty equivalent to the sum of the remaining periodic fees shall apply.

5. Payment method

(1) GO will provide the User with the Service from date of activation to the date of use.

(2) In respect of the Service the User shall pay a monthly rental fee relative to the Service as indicated in Schedule 2. The rental fee must be paid from the day on which the Servicecommenced, and is payable in advance. The User shall also pay for the equipment provided and installed in accordance with Clause 2 (4) (b) and Clause 2 (4) (a), where applicable, and this prior to the activation of Service. The User shall also pay for any other Fees, which may be applicable, as indicated in Schedule 2, upon the payment of each bill. For the purposes of this Clause, the User agrees that GO’s records shall be sufficient and conclusive proof of the date/s on which the Service commenced.

(3) The rental fee shall continue to be payable notwithstanding any interruption or suspension or restriction of the Service, irrespective of the cause, and the User is not entitled to any refund of any rent paid or to any remission of rent in case of such interruption or suspension or restriction of the Service.

(4) If the User requests some apparatus or facility which GO does not normally provide and for which no charges are established in Schedule 2, GO will establish such charges as it considers reasonable and appropriate in each case.

(5) If the User requests GO to carry out any work connected with the Service outside normal working hours, and GO accepts to do so, GO will establish a charge for any work done outside normal working hours and the User agrees to pay such charge. In establishing this charge GO will take into account all extra costs, which it will have incurred on the work performed outside normal working hours.

(6) GO may change the Service including but not limited to, access procedures, hours of operation, menu structures, commands, documentation, Table of Rates and services offered (including their description, terms and conditions). Notification of any such changes will be provided to the User at least thirty (30) days prior to the proposed change/s; provided that if any such change is of an urgent nature, notification shall be made to the User as soon as is
reasonably practicable. Such notification shall be made, in GO’s discretion, either by post to the address provided by the User to GO, or by publishing information on the GO website. By becoming a subscriber to the Service and/or accessing and/or using the Service, the User acknowledges to be aware of such change/s and agrees to be bound by and adhere to them.

6. Method of Payment of Bills

(1) GO reserves the right to establish the method of payment of bills from time to time. The method of payment shall be stated in the bill.

(2) When allowed as a method of payment in the bill, all cheques must be made payable to GO p.l.c.

(3) The provisions in GO’s Conditions for the Telephone Service relating to complaints, telephone billing enquiries, default in payment of telephone bills and reconnection of service shall be equally applicable to this Agreement.

7. User’s Duties in Relation to Private Equipment

(1) The User shall be responsible to ensure that his/her equipment conforms with the relevant laws, regulations and standards approved by the competent authorities.

(2) The User’s failure to abide by the conditions laid down in this Clause, will entitle GO to suspend the Service until the User has complied with these conditions.

(3) In the event that the private wiring and/or private equipment causes a fault to GO’s network, the User shall pay all expenses that GO has incurred for the visit irrespective if fault has been rectified or not.

8. Termination and Suspension

(1) GO may, at its own discretion, terminate the Service immediately and without prior notice:
(a) n breach of any of the Terms and Conditions of this Agreement including, without limitation, late or non-payment of sums due, submissions of incorrect and/or incomplete data and improper use of the Service;
(b) when the provision of any Service to the User could give rise to or cause disruption to the Services offered by GO to its other subscribers;
(c) when GO is bound to comply with any order (provisional or otherwise), instruction, request, directive, decision of the Government, any administrative authority, administrative tribunal, regulatory body or any other competent entity, to cease to provide the Service to the User GO shall notify the User of such termination by post to the last address provided by the User to GO. The dispatch of such notice shall bring about the termination of this Agreement ipso jure.

(2) GO may, at its own discretion, terminate the Service provided to the User for any reason whatsoever by giving the User a minimum of fifteen (15) days notice. Such notification shall be made by post to the address provided by the User to GO.

(3) GO may, without terminating the Service, suspend provision of the Service in whole or in part, until further notice, with immediate effect if GO:

(a) has reason to terminate the Services in accordance with clause 8 (1);

(b) needs to carry out work relating to upgrading or maintenance of the Service;

(c) needs to provide support for any technical failure, modification or maintenance of the Service provided that GO will use its reasonable endeavours to procure the resumption of the Service as early as possible;

(d) becomes aware or has reasonable cause to believe that fraudulent use of the Service is taking place with or without the User’s knowledge. GO may, notwithstanding the suspension of the Service, opt to terminate the Service for any of the reasons mentioned in this clause 8 (3) or for any other reason whatsoever.

(4) Any suspension or termination or unavailability of the Service shall be without prejudice to any other right or remedy which may be competent to GO but shall not give rise to any claim.

9. Improper Use

(1) The User acknowledges that he/she may only use the Service for lawful purposes. Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, the User agrees that:

(a) he/she shall not use, and shall not authorise, permit or tolerate any other party to use the Service for the transmission of any material, which is in violation of any law, regulation, guideline, decision or directive in force in Malta or which is defamatory, menacing, obscene, in breach of third party intellectual or industrial property rights or in breach of trade secrets;

(b) he/she shall immediately notify GO of any unauthorised or illegal use of the Service of which the same User becomes aware.

(2) If GO has reasonable cause to believe that the provisions of clause 9 (1) are being contravened, GO may suspend or terminate the Service with immediate effect, and this without prejudice to any civil or criminal proceedings, which may be taken against the User or the person or persons concerned under any law.

10. Data Protection

Insofar as the information provided to us by the User in the Application Form or at any time during the period for which the User makes use of the Service, constitutes personal data for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2001, GO will only process such data in the manner and for the purposes stated in GO’s Conditions for the Telephone Service.

11. Assignment

(1) GO shall be entitled to assign this Agreement either in whole or in part.

(2) The User undertakes that he/she will not assign, dispose of, re-sell, sub-lease or in any other way transfer his/her Service provided to him/her under this Agreement, or assign or dispose of, or part with, any benefit or advantage under this Agreement.

12. Excusable Events

(1) Without prejudice to any other provision contained in this Agreement excluding or limiting responsibility, GO shall not be liable to the User for any loss or damage which may be suffered by the User due to any breach of these Terms and Conditions or failure on GO’s part to perform any obligation as a result of technical problems relating to the Service, termination of any licence to operate or use the Service, act of God, inclement weather, flood, drought, lightning
or fire, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, failure or shortage of power supply, strikes, lockouts, labour disturbances and industrial disputes of any kind, Government control, restrictions or prohibitions or any other Government act or omission whether local or national, any act or omission of any road transport authority, or of the operators of other telecommunication services, or of any other agencies or authorities, acts or omissions of the public authorities, war, military operations and riots, difficulties, delays or interruptions in the production or supply of equipment used in the Service, act or default of any supplier agent or subcontractor, or any other similar or dissimilar causes beyond GO’s control.

13. Liability

(1) The Parties agree that GO shall not be liable for any loss or damage, whether direct or indirect, sustained by the User or whosoever else by reason of any failure in or breakdown of, or reduction in quality of, the Service provided under this Agreement, whatsoever and whosoever shall be the cause of such failure, breakdown interruption or reduction in quality and however long it shall last.

(2) The User undertakes and binds himself to indemnify and hold harmless GO, its directors, officials, employees and agents against any liability, loss or damage, whether direct or indirect, arising out of or in connection with the Service provided in this Agreement, including but not limited to any claim or claims for loss or damage made by any person whomsoever.

(3) The User shall defend and pay all costs, damages, awards, fees (including any reasonable legal fees) and judgments awarded against GO arising from the above claims and shall provide GO with notice of such claims, full authority to defend, compromise or settle such claims and reasonable assistance necessary to defend such claims, at his/her sole expense.

(4) Without prejudice to the generality of the above clauses, GO expressly excludes liability for consequential loss or damage which may arise in connection with this Agreement, or for loss of profit, business, revenue, goodwill, anticipated savings or otherwise.

(5) Nothing in this Agreement shall operate to constitute any of the parties an agent, partner, employee or representative of the other.

14. General Provisions

(1) In the event that any one or more of the provisions contained in this Agreement shall for any reason be held to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable in any respect, such invalidity, illegality or unenforceability shall not affect any other provision of this Agreement, but this Agreement shall be construed as if such invalid, illegal or unenforceable provision had never been set forth herein, and the Agreement shall be carried out as nearly as possible according to its original terms and intent.

(2) The failure of either party to insist upon strict performance of any provision of this Agreement, or to exercise any right or remedy to which it is entitled under or in connection with this Agreement, shall not constitute a waiver thereof, and any waiver of any default shall not constitute a waiver of any subsequent default.

(3) This Agreement shall be governed, construed and interpreted in accordance with the Laws of the Republic of Malta. The parties submit to the jurisdiction of the courts of the Republic of Malta.

Schedule 1 – Definition of Service

1. Basic Rate Access The Basic Rate Access (BRA), also known as Basic Rate Interface (BRI), is suitable for a traffic profile generated by normal subscribers or small sized enterprises. It is defined as two 64Kbps Bearer (B) channels, and one 16Kbps Data (D) channel that carries signaling information. The BRA is also referred to as a 2B+D connection.

2. Primary Rate Access The Primary Rate Access (PRA), also known as Primary Rate Interface (PRI), can handle a higher traffic load than the Basic Rate Access. The PRA is for medium to large sized enterprises and consists of thirty 64Kbps Bearer (B) channels and one 64Kbps DATA (D) channel, or a 30B+D connection. With a total bandwidth of 2.048Mbps, it is designed for transmission through a standard European E1 interface, which can be delivered over either two conventional twisted pair equipped with HDSL modems or else over fibre optic cable.

3. Extra Services

a. Bearer Services – these are the building blocks that make up an ISDN service which provide the capability to transport speech, data, text or images. The basic bearer services supported by GO’s ISDN switches are:

i. Circuit mode 3.1kHz audio

ii. Circuit mode 64Kbps unrestricted

iii. Circuit mode speech

iv. Unrestricted digital information with tone/announcements (UDITA)

b. Teleservices – these should be seen as application on top of the ISDN Bearer services. The following basic teleservices provided by GO are available for both BRA and PRA:

i. Telephony 3.1kHz

ii. Telephony 7kHz

iii. Videotelephony

iv. Telefax G3

v. Telefax G4

vi. Syntax-based videotext

vii. Euro file transfer

viii. File transfer and access management (FTAM)

c. Supplementary Services – these are a number of special functions that can be used in conjunction with an ISDN service. Customers who have a BRA or a PRA can enhance their service by adding Supplementary Services. These services rely on the corresponding BRA or PRA and can never be used as stand alone functions. These include:

i. Teleservices

iia. Advice of Charge During Call

iib. Advice of Charge at End of Call

iii. Call Forwarding on Busy

iv. Call Forwarding on No Reply

v. Call Forwarding Unconditional

vi. Call Hold

vii. Call Waiting

viii. Calling Line Identification Presentation

ix. Calling Line Identification Restriction

x. Code Controlled Barring

xi. Conference Call (3 party)

xii. DDI (4+4)

xiii. DDI (5+3)

xiv. Malicious Call Identification

xv. Sub-Addressing

xvi. Subscriber-Controlled Password

xvii. Terminal Portability

xviii. Completion of Outgoing Calls to Busy Subscriber

xix. Hotline

xx. Hunting Method

xxi. Multiple Subscriber Number

xxii. Installation of “S” Bus Wiring at Customers Premises

Schedule 2 – ISDN Price List

1. Dualstream – ISDN
Connection/Location Portability Rent per annum /Upgrade Fee (incl. VAT) (incl. VAT)
Business €179.36 €437.92
Includes two 64Kbps channels and a number of supplementary services. A maximum of 3 telephone numbers, including default, DDI and MSN ones, can be associated with a single ISDN Dualstream service.

2. Dualstream Plus – ISDN Connection/Location Portability Rent per annum /Upgrade Fee (incl. VAT) (incl. VAT)
Business €219.89 €437.92
Includes two 64Kbps channels, an analogue port and a number of supplementary services. A maximum of 3 telephone numbers, including default, DDI and MSN ones, can be associated with a single ISDN Dualstream Plus service.

3. Multistream – ISDN
Connection/Location Portability Rent per annum /Upgrade Fee (incl. VAT) (incl. VAT)
€2198.93 €3610.53
In the case where the customer releases a minimum of 15 telephone copper pairs or the service is the second or subsequent one to be installed on existing fibre optic as well as in the case where an existing Channelised E1 service is upgraded to Multistream, then the connection fee is reduced to €274.86 (incl. VAT). A maximum of 5 telephone numbers, including default, DDI and MSN ones, can be associated with a single ISDN Multistream service.
If the customer terminates the agreement prior to the lapse of the contracted period, a penalty equivalent to the sum of the remaining periodic fees shall apply.