Terms and Conditions

Standard Form of Agreement

Business – Standard Terms and Conditions

These Terms
1. These terms and conditions set out the basis on which we provide telephone and internet services to our business customers. If you use our telephone or internet services for residential purposes then our Residential Standard Terms and Conditions.
2. Additional terms may apply to your use of some of our services. If there is any conflict between these terms and conditions and any additional terms, the additional terms will prevail. The additional terms shall be deemed to form part of these terms and conditions, so a breach by you of the additional terms shall be deemed to be a breach of these terms and conditions.
Our Services
1. We are not obliged to provide services unless we accept your application. Acceptance only occurs when we communicate this in writing or when we supply services to you. In either event, these terms and conditions shall constitute the agreement between us. We can decide whether or not to accept any application.
2. We will be responsible for determining the manner in which the services are to be provided.
3. We will use all reasonable endeavors to make our services available to you at all times. However our services rely on us using networks and services owned by other people. As a result we cannot promise that our services will always be available or fully functioning. If our services are unavailable for any reason we will endeavor to restore service as soon as possible. If you need assistance in using our services please call Customer Support.
4. While we take reasonable security precautions, due to the nature of telecommunications services we cannot guarantee the confidentiality of any calls or transmissions you make using our services.
5. We can suspend or restrict our services at any time if:
  1. we consider it necessary to protect or maintain our network or anyone else’s network; or
  2. we believe that you have breached any of our terms and conditions.
6. Network charges will still apply during the period of any suspension. In addition, if our services are suspended because of your breach, we can charge you a reconnection.
Charges
1. You must pay our charges for the services we provide to you, regardless of whether you or someone else uses those services. We may vary our charges from time to time. If we increase any charge we will give you as much notice as reasonably possible. You can always check the latest available charges by checking the My Account section on our website or calling Customer Service.
2. We will invoice you monthly for services we provide to you. Fixed charges are payable in advance. Usage based charges (such as toll calls) are payable in arrears. Our preferred method of invoicing is by email. If you require us to post an invoice to you then we reserve the right to charge you a administration fee for doing so.
3. Unless stated otherwise all pricing quoted for business customers is excluding GST.
4. You must pay each invoice within 15 days of the invoice date. If you do not pay any invoice within that time we may:
  1. charge you interest on the overdue amount from the due date until the date you pay, at the rate of 2.5% per month compounding monthly; or
  2. charge you a late payment fee of $7.50 whichever is greater; and
  3. withhold any rebate, discount or similar incentive which would otherwise be available to you; and
  4. suspend or restrict your service; and
  5. recover from you any debt recovery costs including legal costs on an indemnity basis for the enforcement or attempted enforcement of any of these terms and conditions; and
  6. require you to put in place a direct debit payment arrangement for payment of our invoices
5. If you wish to raise a genuine dispute regarding an invoice from us you must do so in writing within 15 days of the date of the invoice. We will consider any issues raised in good faith and will promptly advise you of any resolution or amendment to our charges.
6. We may at our discretion impose a credit limit on your account.
7. If you breach this agreement, then you must on demand pay our legal costs on an indemnity basis for the enforcement or attempted enforcement of any of these terms and conditions.
Using Our Services
1. You must not use or permit to use our services in a way which:
  1. breaks any laws;
  2. infringes anyone’s rights; or
  3. is malicious, obscene or offensive.
2. You must keep confidential any password or PIN number which is used by you to access our services or systems and we recommend that you change this on a regular basis for security reasons. You must also change your password or PIN number if we ask you to do so.
3. You must comply with any reasonable restrictions we impose or directions we give regarding the use of our services.
4. You must ensure that all information you give us is correct. Where any information you have supplied to us changes you must provide us with updated information as soon as possible.
5. Subject to any term commitment, you must notify us if you wish to terminate your non-coded access to our services.
6. You agree that we can act on any verbal instructions you give us in relation to the services.
7. We may install equipment and carry out other work at a customer’s premises. If we do so at your premises, then you grant to us and our contractors an irrevocable licence to enter your premises as and when we reasonably require (and you must obtain any necessary consents to such access) for the purposes of installing, maintaining, monitoring and removing such equipment or carrying out such work.
8. If you have agreed to use a service for a fixed contract term, then you must do so. If you cancel within the fixed term period, you will be liable for any applicable early termination charges. The formula for calculating the early termination charges is as defined below. For services where there is no fixed contract term, or where the fixed term has expired, either of us can terminate that service on giving the other party 30 days written notice.
  Early Termination Charge   =   RCT x MMS
  
  Where
  RCT          =          Remain Contract Term (months)
  MMS        =         Monthly Minimum Spend
Dial-Up Internet Services
1. This clause applies if we provide dial-up internet access services to you.
2. You must not use a flat rate dial-up internet access account as a permanent connection. We can at our discretion disconnect you if:
  1. you are continuously connected for more than 5 hours;
  2. your connection is idle for more than 20 minutes (meaning that no data is transferred during that period); or
  3. we otherwise consider that your use of our internet access service has been excessive or unreasonable.
3. If we disconnect you for one of the reasons set out in clause 5 (b) you will normally be able to reconnect without additional cost. However, if your account is overdue at the time of disconnection, you may be unable to reconnect until your overdue account is brought up to date.
4. You are responsible for downloading to your computer any email that you wish to keep. We may without notice to you remove any mail that remains on our servers for more than 90 days.
5. You must not knowingly transmit any worms or viruses or use our services in a manner which is likely to or is intended to damage or compromise the security of our network or anyone else’s network.
6. You must use our service in a reasonable and responsible manner and in accordance with established “netiquette”.
7. You must not have more than one connection to our service using your user ID at any time. If for any reason you do have simultaneous connections we reserve the right to charge you $4.50 per hour (or part hour) for each additional connection.
8. We do not control the information that can be accessed through the internet. Accordingly we are not responsible for any inaccurate, illegal or offensive information which may be obtained from your use of our services. We are also not liable for any viruses or other harmful code which you download via the internet.
Broadband Internet services
1. This clause applies if we provide broadband internet access services to you.
2. Our plan speeds are the maximum speeds at which you are able to send data to or receive data from our network. Because we rely on other providers to deliver data to or from our network we are unable to guarantee that these speeds will be available to you. Other issues beyond our control (such as problems with your phone line, or in the telephone network) may also result in you being unable to connect, or to send or receive data at those speeds. We cannot guarantee that our broadband services will always be available or that they can always be utilised for any particular purpose.
3. You are responsible for all data used over your broadband service. We recommend that you have sufficient security in place to protect your computer/network.
4. If you are on an “uncapped” or “unlimited” plan the total amount of data you can upload or download is unlimited. We may use traffic prioritisation policies for these plans and our capped plans at any time to improve the overall performance amongst our customers. Other factors may influence the particular speeds or latency you can achieve to servers nationally and internationally. Our control of these speeds is limited to our own network. Connections to servers outside of our network are on a “best effort” basis and it may not be possible for you to achieve your desired or expected speeds or latency where you are connecting to equipment outside of our network.
5. If your phone line is disconnected for any reason, we will be unable to provide broadband service to you and this will mean that you have terminated our agreement for the provision of that service. If services are reinstalled, even on the same phone number, you may incur installation charges.
6. If you change your address or phone line you will need to: (a) provide us with a minimum of 30 days notice of the change to minimise service disruption; and (b) cancel all current broadband services to avoid unwanted charges, even if the phone line is no longer valid. Services must be reinstalled on the new phone line and even if you are maintaining your existing phone number you may incur installation charges. We will not always be able to supply broadband services on the new line or to that new address in which case you will have terminated our agreement for the provision of that service.
Supply of Equipment
1. We may from time to time supply equipment to you in connection with our provision of services to you. Where we do so, unless we agree otherwise, the equipment remains our property, and you have no ownership rights to that equipment.
2. You acknowledge we have supplied to you any equipment specified in your application form.
3. You must return to us upon termination of this agreement all equipment which we supply to you. If you do not return any item of equipment to us within 30 days of termination of this agreement then you must pay us on demand the full cost of that item of equipment. You must also meet any repair or replacement costs if the equipment is damaged, lost or destroyed while under your control.
4. If requested by us, you will sign a document which identifies the equipment we supply to you. You will also sign any other document and provide us with any other information which is reasonably necessary for us to register a financing statement in respect of the equipment we supply, in terms of the Personal Property Securities Act.
Phone Numbers and Directories
1. Any phone number that we allocate to you does not become your property. We may need to change your phone number. If we do need to change your number we will give you as much notice of the change as we can.
2. If you wish your details to be available through directory assistance and/or in the phone book then we will pass your name, number and address to Telecom. You agree that Telecom can use your details for those purposes.
3. You agree that no member of the Telecom group of companies (or their officers, employees, contractors or agents) has any liability to you in connection with the directory assistance service or your phone book listing.
Term
1. If you have agreed to use a service for a fixed contract term, then you must do so. You can terminate the service during the fixed term by giving us 30 days written notice and paying the early termination fee. This charge shall be:
  1. The early termination fee which is specified in your contract and/or application form for that service; or where none is specified, then it shall be:
  Early Termination Charge   =   RCT x MMS
  
  Where
  RCT         =         Remain Contract Term (months)
  MMS        =         Monthly Minimum Spend
2. For services where there is no fixed contract term, or where the fixed term has expired, either of us can terminate that service on giving the other 30 days’ written notice.
3. If you terminate any service without giving us 30 days’ written notice, you will be required to pay 50%.
4. We have the right to terminate an account if all billing on the account has ceased for a period of 3 months.
5. We can terminate the provision of any service to you on no less than 30 days’ written notice if a third party service provider or carrier does anything that alters the circumstances in which we provide the services to you (i.e. including factual circumstances or financial conditions or circumstances) from those that existed on the day you entered into this agreement..
6. We can terminate this agreement, or the provision of any service to you, immediately if you breach any term of this agreement or if we reasonably believe that you have supplied incorrect or misleading information to us.
7. If this agreement is terminated for any reason you must still pay us for services provided to you up to the date termination takes effect. If you have prepaid for a service, no refund is payable to you on termination unless we agree otherwise.
Liability
1. We exclude all of our liability (including liability in contract, negligence, nuisance, otherwise in tort, equity, by statute or otherwise howsoever) to you in connection with us providing services to you or failing to provide services to you or for any other breach by us of the express or implied terms of this agreement. This exclusion of liability shall extend to include all and any liability of our officers, employees, contractors or agents. Without limiting this, we are not liable to you:
  1. if any communication you make is intercepted;
  2. if any communication you make is not properly transmitted or received;
  3. if any of our services are not available at any time or are faulty;
  4. for any delay in commencing the provision of services;
  5. if any software or equipment we supply does not operate properly;
  6. for any error in any directory listing which we arrange;
  7. for internet users, if your computer becomes affected by any virus or worm.
2. We are not liable to you for any fault in or non-provision of services which is caused by an event beyond our reasonable control.
3. If you use another service provider’s services during any period when our service is not fully operational, we are not liable to pay any amount you are charged by that service provider.
4. You acknowledge that no third party whose network or services we use to supply services to you (nor any officer, employee, contractor or agent of such third party) is in any way liable to you in connection with our services. This clause is intended to confer a benefit which those third parties can enforce.
5. If we are held to be liable to you for any reason, then our liability to you is limited to an amount equal to our average charges to you for one month in respect of any single event or related series of events and to a maximum amount equal to our average charges to you for a three month period in any one year.
6. You agree that you are using our services for the purposes of a business and that any rights you may have had under the Consumer Guarantees Act are excluded.
Privacy
1. You may at times supply us with personal information, for example, when you apply to become a customer. We may also obtain personal information from your use of our services.
2. You agree to us obtaining information about you from Credit Reporting Agencies for the purpose of credit checking where this may be required to provide you with services. You also agree to us disclosing information about you to Credit Reporting Agencies for collection purposes.
3. Any personal information we collect is kept at our offices. You are entitled to request any information we hold about you (although you must pay our reasonable charge for making it available) and to request that any incorrect information be corrected.
4. We may record or monitor calls between us to verify information and for staff training purposes.
Changing these terms
1. We can change these terms from time to time by giving you 14 days’ notice. We will inform you of any change by emailing or writing to you, by putting a notification on your invoice or by providing relevant information on our website.
Notices
1. Except where you wish to terminate our services, if you wish to notify us of anything you can do so by writing or by calling Customer Service. We may require you to confirm in writing any advice you give us by phone.
2. If we wish to communicate with you or notify you of anything we can do so by post, phone, facsimile, text message or email to the last known address or number we have for you.
3. If your contact details change you must advise us of the new details as soon as possible.
Other items
1. These terms are to be interpreted in accordance with the laws of New Zealand. Any dispute regarding the provision of our services under these terms is to be determined by New Zealand courts.
2. You must not assign your rights under this agreement. We can transfer our rights and obligations under this agreement to anyone else. We will notify you if we do so.
3. A delay in exercising any right is not a waiver of that right. A failure to exercise a right on any occasion does not prevent any subsequent exercise of that right.

Residential – Standard Terms and Conditions

The following terms normally apply whenever we do anything for our residential customers. Please contact Customer Service if you have any questions about these terms. Different terms may apply to some services we provide for residential customers, as we explain in these standard terms. If you want to use our services for business or other non-residential purposes, other terms apply.

These terms
1. These terms and conditions set out the basis on which we provide telephone and Internet services to our residential customers. If you use our telephone or Internet services for business purposes then our Business – Standard Terms and Conditions apply.
2. Additional terms may apply to you. If so, we will notify you what the specific terms are.
Our services
1. We are not obliged to provide services unless we accept your application. We can decide whether or not to accept any application.
2. We will be responsible for determining the manner in which the services are to be provided.
3. We will use all reasonable endeavors to make our services available to you at all times. However our services rely on us using networks and services owned by other carriers. As a result we cannot promise that our services will always be available or fully functioning. If our services are unavailable for any reason we will endeavor to restore service as soon as possible.
4. We can suspend or restrict our services at any time if:
  1. we consider it necessary to protect or maintain our network; or
  2. we believe that you have breached any of our terms and conditions.
Charges
1. You must pay our charges for the services we provide to you, regardless of whether you or someone else uses those services. We may vary our charges from time to time. You can always check the latest available charges by calling Customer Service.
2. We will invoice you for services we provide to you. However we may elect to carry forward charges to the next billing period if your usage is below a minimum level. Fixed charges are payable in advance. Usage based charges (such as toll calls) are payable in arrears. If we change the frequency of your billing we will give you at least 10 working days notice.
  Phone, Tolls and Internet customers
3. You must pay each invoice within 15 days of the invoice date. If you do not pay any invoice within that time we may:
  1. charge you interest on the overdue amount from the due date until the date you pay, at the rate of 2.5% per month; or
  2. charge you a late payment fee of $7.50 whichever is greater; and
  3. suspend or restrict your service; and
  4. recover from you any debt recovery costs; and
  5. require you to put in place a direct debit payment arrangement for payment.
4. If you wish to raise a genuine dispute regarding an invoice of ours you must do so in writing within 15 days of the date of the invoice. We will consider any issues raised in good faith and will promptly advise you of any resolution or amendment to our charges.
5. We may at our discretion impose a credit limit on your account.
6. If you breach any term of this agreement, and we incur costs as result, then you must pay those costs if we require you to do so.
Using our services
1. You must not use our services in a way which:
  1. breaks any laws;
  2. infringes anyone’s rights; or
  3. is malicious, obscene or offensive.
2. You cannot resell any services to another party. Our service can be used only for normal residential calling. This excludes activities such as auto-dialing, continuous call forwarding, telemarketing, Call Centres, fax or voicemail broadcasting. We reserve the right to immediately disconnect or charge our standard per minute rates if in our sole discretion we consider that your activity is inconsistent with normal residential usage patterns.
3. You must comply with any reasonable restrictions we impose or directions we give regarding the use of our services.
4. You must ensure that all information you give us is correct. Where any information you have supplied to us changes (such as contact details) you must provide us with updated information as soon as possible.
5. Subject to any term commitment, you must notify us if you wish to terminate your non-coded access to our services.
6. You agree that we can act on any verbal instructions you give us in relation to the services.
7. We may install equipment and carry out other work at a customer’s premises. If we do so at your premises, you must allow us and our contractors access as and when we reasonably require (and you must obtain any necessary consents to such access) for the purposes of installing, maintaining, monitoring and removing such equipment or carrying out such work.
Dial-Up Services
1. This clause applies if we provide Dial-Up Internet access services to you.
2. You must not use a flat rate dial-up internet access account as a permanent connection. We can at our discretion disconnect you if we consider that your use of our internet access service has been excessive or unreasonable.
3. If we disconnect you as set out in clause 5.2 you will normally be able to reconnect without additional cost. However, if your account is overdue at the time of disconnection, you may be unable to reconnect until your overdue account is brought up to date.
4. You are responsible for downloading to your computer any email that you wish to keep. We may without notice to you remove any mail that remains on our servers for more than 90 days.
5. You must not knowingly transmit any worms or viruses or use our services in a manner which is likely to or is intended to damage or compromise the security of our network or anyone else’s network.
6. You must use our service in a reasonable and responsible manner.
7. You must not have more than one connection to our service using your user ID at any time. If for any reason you do have simultaneous connections we reserve the right to charge you $5.00 per hour (or part hour) for each additional connection.
8. We do not control the information that can be accessed through the internet. Accordingly we are not responsible for any inaccurate, illegal or offensive information which may be obtained from your use of our services. We are also not liable for any viruses or other harmful code which you download via the internet.
Broadband services
1. This clause applies if we provide broadband internet access services to you.
2. Our plan speeds are the maximum speeds at which you are able to send data to or receive data from our network. Because we rely on other providers to deliver data to or from our network we are unable to guarantee that these speeds will be available to you. Other issues beyond our control (such as problems with your phone line, or in the telephone network) may also result in you being unable to connect, or to send or receive data at those speeds. We cannot guarantee that our broadband services will always be available or that they can always be utilised for any particular purpose.
3. If you are on an “uncapped” or “unlimited” plan the total amount of data you can upload or download is unlimited. We may use traffic prioritisation policies for these plans and our capped plans at any time to improve the overall performance amongst our customers. Other factors may influence the particular speeds or latency you can achieve to servers nationally and internationally. Our control of these speeds is limited to our own network. Connections to servers outside our network are on a “best effort” basis and it may not be possible for you to achieve your desired or expected speeds or latency where you are connecting to equipment outside our control.
4. If you change your address or phone line you will need to:
  1. provide us with a minimum of 21 days notice of the change to minimise service disruption; and
  2. cancel all current broadband services to avoid unwanted charges, even if the phone line is no longer valid.
  Services must be reinstalled on the new phone line and even if you are maintaining your existing phone number you may incur installation charges. We will not always be able to supply broadband services on the new line or to that new address in which case you will have terminated our agreement for the provision of that service.
Phone numbers and directories
1. Any phone number that we allocate to you remains the property of the network provider. If for some reason we need to change your number we will give you as much notice of the change as we can.
2. If you wish your details to be available through directory assistance and/or in the phone book then we will pass your name, number and address to Telecom. You agree that Telecom can use your details for those purposes.
3. Subject to the terms of the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993, you agree that no member of the Telecom group of companies (or their officers, employees, contractors or agents) has any liability to you in connection with the directory assistance service or your phone book listing.
Term
1. If you have agreed to use a service for a fixed contract term, then you must do so. If you cancel within the fixed term period, you will be liable for any applicable early termination charges. The formula for calculating the early termination charges is as defined below. For services where there is no fixed contract term, or where the fixed term has expired, either of us can terminate that service on giving the other party 30 days written notice.Early Termination Charge = RCT x MMS
  Where
  RCT = Remain Contract Term (months)
  MMS = Monthly Minimum Spend
2. We can terminate this agreement, or the provision of any service to you, immediately if you breach any term of this agreement or if we reasonably believe that you have supplied incorrect or misleading information to us.
3. If this agreement is terminated for any reason you must still pay us for services provided to you up to the date of termination. If you have prepaid for a service, no refund is payable to you on termination unless we agree otherwise.
Liability
1. We exclude all of our liability to you in connection with us providing services to you or failing to provide services to you. Without limiting this, we are not liable to you (and nor are any of our officers, employees, contractors or agents liable to you):
  1. if any communication you make is intercepted;
  2. if any communication you make is not properly transmitted or received;
  3. if any of our services are not available at any time or are faulty;
  4. for any delay in commencing the provision of services;
  5. if any software we supply does not operate properly;
  6. for any error in any directory listing which we arrange;
  7. (for internet customers) if your computer becomes affected by any virus or worm.
2. We are not liable to you for any fault in or non-provision of services which is caused by an event beyond our reasonable control.
3. If you use another service provider’s services during any period when our service is not fully operational, we are not liable to pay any amount you are charged by that service provider.
4. You acknowledge that no third party whose network or services we use to supply services to you (nor any officer, employee, contractor or agent of such third party) is in any way liable to you in connection with our services. This clause is intended to confer a benefit which those third parties can enforce.
5. Nothing in this clause limits any rights you have under the Consumer Guarantees Act unless you are using our services for the purposes of a business in which case any rights you may have had under the Consumer Guarantees Act are excluded.
Privacy
1. You authorise us to pass personal information to credit reporting agencies for the purpose of credit checking. You also agree to us obtaining and passing personal information about you to credit reporting agencies. This information will be used to update and maintain credit information files and will be accessed by the customers of the credit reporting agency.
2. You also agree to us passing personal information about you to a credit reporting agency in the event that you default on your payment obligations.
3. Any personal information we collect is kept at our offices. You are entitled to request any information we hold about you (although you must pay our reasonable charge for making it available) and to request that any incorrect information be corrected.
4. We may record calls you make to us to verify information and for staff training purposes.
5. You agree that personal information that we have obtained from you can be shared with other networks, for the purpose of monitoring and investigating fraud and other offences. We may also share your information with public sector agencies in order for them to investigate an offence.
Changing these terms
1. We can change these terms from time to time by giving you 14 days’ notice. We will inform you of any change by emailing or writing to you or by providing relevant information on our website.
Notices
1. Except where you wish to terminate our services in accordance with 9.1, if you wish to notify us of anything you can do so by writing or by calling Csutomer Service. We may require you to confirm in writing any advice you give us by phone.
2. If we wish to communicate with you or notify you of anything we can do so by post, phone, facsimile, text message or email to the last known address or number we have for you.
3. If your contact details change you must advise us of the new details as soon as possible.
Other items
1. These terms are to be interpreted in accordance with the laws of New Zealand. Any dispute regarding the provision of our services under these terms is to be determined by New Zealand courts.
2. You must not assign your rights under this agreement. We can transfer our rights and obligations under this agreement to anyone else. We will notify you if we do so.
3. A delay in exercising any right is not a waiver of that right. A failure to exercise a right on any occasion does not prevent any subsequent exercise of that right.