Fire-IT Home Fibre Services Agreement

This agreement applies when you take a home internet package supplied on Openserve, Vumatel, Frogfoot or MetroFibre fibre. The package, speed, monthly price, once-off charges and installation address are the values shown on this proposal at the time of signing, and together with this proposal they form the agreement between you and Fire-IT (Pty) Ltd, registration number 2012/173035/07, VAT number 4610272165, of 36 Regency Dr, Route 21 Business Park, Centurion, Pretoria, Gauteng 0178. Fire-IT places and manages the order with the fibre network operator. The fibre network operator or its appointed contractor performs the fibre installation and controls the underlying access network.

Your service commences on the date Fire-IT activates it, not the date you sign. Services are billed monthly in advance from that date, and you pay only a pro-rata amount for your first month. Invoices are issued in advance and are settled by debit order, or on payment terms agreed with you in writing. Monthly package prices for this home service include VAT at 15%.

Before Fire-IT opens the account, and again if the account falls into arrears, we may obtain a credit report on the account holder from a registered credit bureau. Accepting this proposal is your consent to that, and the identity or passport number recorded with your signature is what the search is run against. The report is used for one purpose: assessing whether the account holder can meet the financial obligations this agreement creates. Where a company is the paying party the check is run on the company, and Fire-IT may also check the person who signs on its behalf. Where the result changes what Fire-IT is able to offer you, we tell you before the order is placed.

Home fibre is prepaid: the month is paid for before you use it. If payment for the new month has not reached Fire-IT by the 7th of that month, we may suspend the service until the account is settled in full. To restore a suspended service, pay through the Fire-IT client portal, or make payment and then contact our accounts team so that we can release it. There is no charge to reconnect. Suspension does not pause your bill. The fibre network operator charges Fire-IT the full monthly rental for as long as the line exists, whether it is suspended or not, so you continue to be billed for it throughout the suspension. Settling the account clears the arrears and restores the service; it does not credit the period the service was suspended.

A service that is suspended for non-payment and is still unpaid when the next billing cycle begins is cancelled by Fire-IT for breach of this agreement. Being cancelled that way does not clear what you owe. You remain liable for the unpaid month in full, and for one further calendar month, because Fire-IT has to give the fibre network operator the same calendar month's notice that this agreement asks of you and is charged for the line over that period whether you use it or not. Where the service is less than 6 months old, the early cancellation fee set out below is payable as well. Fire-IT will hand the account to its collections process and, where that does not recover the amount, institute legal proceedings, and you are liable for Fire-IT's collection costs, within the limits set out under late payment below, and, where Fire-IT succeeds, for its reasonable legal costs on the attorney and client scale, to the extent the law allows.

If a debit order is returned unpaid or is reversed, you are liable for an administration fee of R150 excluding VAT (R172.50 including VAT), plus the bank's charges, on the terms set out under late payment below. The fee is added to your next invoice and is payable with it. A failed debit order does not extend your due date, so the suspension rule above still applies from the 7th of the month.

You are responsible for giving us an accurate installation address. An incorrect address delays the installation. You must provide access to the premises, any landlord or body-corporate permission required, and a suitable place for the ONT and the router. To schedule and complete the installation, Fire-IT shares your name, surname, cell number and business name with the fibre network operator. That sharing is necessary to provide the service you have ordered and is limited to what the fibre network operator needs to install it. Fire-IT also records the identity or passport number of whoever signs this agreement, alongside their signature, as evidence of who accepted it and so that the account can be administered and, if it comes to it, recovered. If a technician from the fibre network operator is dispatched to a service call and no fault is found on their network, you are liable for the call-out fee the fibre network operator charges Fire-IT for that visit. That fee is currently R1,500 excluding VAT (R1,725 including VAT), and where the fibre network operator changes it we pass on the rate that applies at the time of the visit.

A standard installation covers the civil work needed to bring the fibre into your home and terminate it, and the operators generally allow for around 20 running metres of trenching and reticulation within that. Where your home needs more than that, or the route needs anything out of the ordinary such as a road crossing, a long driveway, boring under paving or reinstating a surface afterwards, the operator quotes the extra separately. That quote is yours to accept or decline, it is payable before the installation goes ahead, and the service cannot be activated until it is settled. Fire-IT gives you the figure before any work starts and never accepts it on your behalf.

Where you rent your home, or it belongs to someone else, tell the owner in writing before the installation that the fibre equipment fitted at the property belongs to the network operator and not to you or to them. Getting the owner's or the body corporate's permission for the installation is your responsibility, and you indemnify Fire-IT against any claim or cost arising because that permission was not obtained. This matters most when you move out: the equipment stays with the line, the operator may need access to it, and a landlord who was never told may treat it as a fixture of the property.

Check that the service works, and tell us within 5 business days of activation if anything about the installation itself is wrong. After that the installation is treated as accepted, and anything that goes wrong afterwards is handled as a fault under the clauses above rather than as an incomplete installation. This does not limit any right you have under the Consumer Protection Act.

Your package is uncapped. Fire-IT applies no monthly data limit and no usage threshold, and there is no fair usage policy on this service. The connection is unshaped in normal operation, subject only to the network management described below. Throughput still depends on the access network, internet breakout, peering, international capacity, your devices, your cabling, your Wi-Fi coverage and the services you connect to.

Throttling means limiting the total data throughput of one user's services, applied per user on a 30-day rolling window, and only while network demand exceeds available capacity. Shaping means prioritising real-time and interactive traffic such as calls and gaming over non-real-time traffic such as downloads, applied to all users together rather than by individual usage. Contention occurs when several users share available capacity, which can affect the bandwidth available at busy times. Fire-IT manages contention using quality-of-service measures including shaping and throttling where applicable, applies them only while demand exceeds capacity, and lifts them when demand falls.

Fire-IT carries international traffic over more than one international link and fails over between them, so a single international break does not take your internet access away. It can still slow it down. When a large international link goes down, the traffic it was carrying moves onto the remaining capacity, and while that lasts international traffic may be shaped so that every client keeps a working service rather than a few sessions consuming what is left. This is the one exception to the unshaped service described above. Local and South African traffic is not affected. Undersea cable breaks and the time taken to repair them are outside Fire-IT's control, and no credit is due for the period a failover is in place.

The package speed is the maximum line rate provisioned for the package you have selected. Home fibre is a best-effort service. It carries no guaranteed minimum speed, no guaranteed contention ratio and no guarantee of uninterrupted availability. Report faults to Fire-IT so that we can raise them with the fibre network operator. A logged call may take up to 72 hours before it is escalated to them. Fire-IT is not liable for downtime caused by an operator's delay in attending to a fault, and installation and restoration timelines depend on their infrastructure, contractor availability, wayleaves and site access.

Fire-IT support is open Monday to Friday, 07:00 to 17:00. Report a fault by email to support@fire-it.co.za or by phone on 012 004 0615. A fault emailed outside those hours is logged when it arrives and picked up when support next opens. Cancellations and account queries go to accounts@fire-it.co.za, as set out below.

Faults are worked in business hours, Monday to Friday. Over a weekend or a public holiday the operators attend to large outages affecting many homes at once, and a fault affecting your home on its own waits for the next business day, so a fault logged on a Friday evening is normally picked up on the Monday. How long it takes from there depends on what has broken and on which operator you are with: a configuration fix is quick, while a broken fibre in the street, a fault needing civil work, or one needing access to somebody else's property can run to two weeks. Where an operator publishes a repair target, that target is the operator's own and is not a commitment from Fire-IT. Fire-IT chases the operator throughout and keeps you informed, but we cannot compel them to move faster, and this service carries no resolution time from Fire-IT. Business fibre is a different product and is attended differently, including over a weekend. If weekend cover is what you need, ask Fire-IT to quote you the business service rather than this one.

Where a fault turns out to be on your side of the line rather than on the operator's network, Fire-IT can send a technician. Call-outs depend on availability and are arranged only after we have tried to find the fault with you over the phone, because most home faults are resolved that way in a few minutes. An unnecessary call-out is charged at R1,999 excluding VAT (R2,298.85 including VAT) per call-out. A call-out is unnecessary where the technician finds no fault, or finds that the cause is on your side: your own devices, equipment, wiring or Wi-Fi, a router or cable that was moved, switched off or unplugged, or anything else this agreement makes your responsibility. This is separate from the operator's no-fault-found fee set out above.

Fire-IT does not issue refunds or credits for downtime or degraded performance that originates outside our own network. That includes faults, planned maintenance, infrastructure breaks and backhaul problems on the fibre network operator's network, and outages at third parties whose services you connect to. Home fibre is supplied back to back with the operator: what they give us on a fault is what we are able to give you.

This uncapped home service is for your personal and household use. You may not resell it, and you may not use it to provide network services to anyone else. That includes operating as a Wireless Internet Service Provider, hosting shell accounts, providing email, news, download, VPN or sandbox services, and running home or private servers for mail, HTTP, FTP, IRC or multi-user forums. You may not share the service with individuals or entities outside your household.

You may have this service billed to a company, which is common where you work from home and your own company or your employer pays for the line. Name the company on this proposal and it becomes the paying party: it is liable for the charges, for the router and for everything else this agreement makes you liable for, and whoever signs confirms they are authorised to bind it. A company registration number and VAT number are only needed where a company is the paying party. What does not change is what the service is. It remains a residential home package supplied to one household at the installation address, and the home use clause above still applies to it. If the installation address is a business premises rather than a home, or you need a service level, an uptime commitment, priority fault handling or attendance over a weekend, this is the wrong product and Fire-IT will quote you the business fibre service instead.

You may use the service only for lawful purposes, and in line with South African law including the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act and the Regulation of Interception of Communications Act. You may not transmit, store or distribute content that is unlawful, that constitutes child pornography, obscenity, hate speech or incitement to violence, or that discriminates on racial, gender or religious grounds. You may not defame, harass, stalk or threaten anyone, including Fire-IT staff. You may not infringe intellectual property rights, including downloading or distributing pirated software or media. You may not collect or share personal information without consent, engage in fraud, pyramid schemes, impersonation or phishing, or breach exchange control regulations. You may not send unsolicited bulk email, maintain mailing lists without consent, or continue mailing a recipient who has asked to be removed. You are responsible for securing your account against unauthorised access and misuse. Where a minor is allowed to use the service, their parent or legal guardian is responsible for the minor's conduct and for any transaction the minor enters into.

You may not do anything that jeopardises the operation, security or integrity of Fire-IT's network or any third-party network. That includes attempting unauthorised access or bypassing security measures, using the service to circumvent authentication on any host, network or account, forging TCP/IP or email headers, accessing another person's computer, software or data without their consent, denial-of-service attacks, network flooding, unauthorised scanning or probing, distributing or linking to viruses, trojans, worms, malware or botnets, monitoring traffic on Fire-IT's network without our written consent, running services with known vulnerabilities such as open recursive DNS or open SMTP relays, failing to secure a mail server against public relay, and failing to act promptly on a denial-of-service attack once notified.

You may not use the service to harm or attempt to harm a minor, including by hosting, possessing, distributing or transmitting unlawful material such as child pornography.

Fire-IT has no control over content carried over the internet, and is not liable for any loss arising from your use of or reliance on it. Our network is a conduit to third-party websites and services that we do not control, and you assume the risk of what you access through it. Public spaces such as bulletin boards, newsgroups and chat rooms are used at your own risk. Fire-IT does not moderate them and is not responsible for their content or for privacy breaches in them.

Fire-IT supplies a free-to-use router for as long as the service is active. Free to use does not mean yours: the router remains Fire-IT's property throughout, is never sold to you as part of this package, and must be returned to Fire-IT when the service ends, as set out under returning the Fire-IT router below. It is managed and monitored by Fire-IT: we configure it remotely, apply firewall rules that help protect the service, watch the line proactively so that we can pick up a fault before you report it, and carry out maintenance from time to time, including firmware updates and configuration changes. Maintenance may briefly interrupt the connection, and we schedule it outside peak hours where we can. Supported management actions and the monitoring we make available are surfaced in the Fire-IT client portal.

The configuration on the router, together with the firewall policy, the monitoring setup and the network design behind them, is Fire-IT's intellectual property. You may not access, extract, copy, modify, replicate, reverse engineer or disclose any of it, and you may not reset, reconfigure, sell, move or tamper with the router without our written approval. Doing so is a breach of this agreement, entitles Fire-IT to suspend or terminate the service, and makes the replacement charge below payable.

A single router does not cover most homes. It will not deliver your full package speed over Wi-Fi in every room, and larger homes, thick walls, outdoor areas and rooms far from the router will have weak or slow coverage. Packages of 100 Mbps and above require dedicated wireless access points throughout the home to maintain those speeds, and so does every double-storey or triple-storey home, whatever the package. Without them, slow or patchy Wi-Fi is a limit of the home's wireless and not a fault on the line, and a call-out for it is an unnecessary call-out under the call-out clause above. Fire-IT supplies, installs and supports dedicated wireless access points, and we will quote for your home on request. Access points and their installation are at your cost and are not part of the monthly package price.

If the Fire-IT router is lost, stolen or damaged, or its configuration is tampered with or reverse engineered, you are liable for its replacement value of R2,500 excluding VAT (R2,875 including VAT). That liability applies whether or not the loss was your fault, and includes damage caused by fire, lightning, power surge, storm, flood or any other event outside anyone's control. You are also liable for repairing or replacing the router or its power supply where the damage or loss is caused by your use, misuse, negligence or unauthorised changes, and an onsite router replacement is charged at R2,500 excluding VAT (R2,875 including VAT). Fire-IT does not insure the router. We recommend that you add it to your household contents insurance, because the replacement cost sits with you even where the loss is not your fault.

You may use your own router instead of ours. If you do, Fire-IT's monitoring, managed firewall policy and proactive fault detection on your line fall away, we can no longer surface your equipment in the client portal, and what we are able to support is limited to the line itself. Fire-IT is not liable for degraded or failed service caused by your own equipment. The Fire-IT router still has to come back to us.

Some clients run a business from home over this service with their own firewall or network equipment behind the Fire-IT router, such as a FortiGate or a MikroTik with its own rules. That equipment is not part of this agreement. Where Fire-IT supplied or manages it, it is covered by its own Fire-IT agreement, including the FortiGate Support and Managed Security Appliances Agreement for a FortiGate, and by the manufacturer's own terms; where you supplied it yourself, it is yours to configure and support. If you have no such equipment, this clause does not apply to you. Either way, the firewall rules on the Fire-IT router described above stay in place.

When the service ends the router comes back to Fire-IT, in good working order and with its power supply and cabling. Fire-IT arranges the collection; you make the equipment available at the agreed time and place. If you move home and take Fire-IT with you, the router moves with you and nothing is returned. If you move and do not take Fire-IT with you, we collect the router from the old address or from another address agreed with you in writing. A router that is not returned, or that is not made available for collection, is invoiced at its replacement value of R2,500 excluding VAT (R2,875 including VAT).

The thin lead running from the operator's box to the wall is glass, not copper, and it is far more fragile than it looks. Do not bend it sharply, coil it tightly, staple it, pinch it behind furniture, or pull on it to move the box. It breaks silently and the service simply stops working. A broken lead means a site visit, and where the break happened at your end the visit and the repair are charged to you.

The Optical Network Terminal, the router or modem Openserve installs (usually a Huawei unit), its power supply and any other Openserve equipment fitted at the premises remain Openserve's property at all times. This equipment belongs to the line, not to you: it stays at the address. If you move out, leave all of it installed and in place, including the power supply. Do not remove, relocate, reset, modify, damage or tamper with it. This is separate from the Fire-IT router described above, which is Fire-IT's property and must be returned to us. Report any fault to Fire-IT so that we can co-ordinate with Openserve. You are liable for damage to or loss of the Openserve equipment, and the cost is obtained from Openserve and billed to you. Openserve aims to resolve most faults within 48 hours, but resolution can take longer because of workload or other factors outside Openserve's and Fire-IT's control.

The Optical Network Terminal, the router or modem Vumatel installs, its power supply and any other Vumatel equipment fitted at the premises remain Vumatel's property at all times. This equipment belongs to the line, not to you: it stays at the address. If you move out, leave all of it installed and in place, including the power supply. Do not remove, relocate, reset, modify, damage or tamper with it. This is separate from the Fire-IT router described above, which is Fire-IT's property and must be returned to us. Report any fault to Fire-IT so that we can co-ordinate with Vumatel. You are liable for damage to or loss of the Vumatel equipment, and the cost is obtained from Vumatel and billed to you.

The Optical Network Terminal, the router or modem Frogfoot installs, its power supply and any other Frogfoot equipment fitted at the premises remain Frogfoot's property at all times. This equipment belongs to the line, not to you: it stays at the address. If you move out, leave all of it installed and in place, including the power supply. Do not remove, relocate, reset, modify, damage or tamper with it. This is separate from the Fire-IT router described above, which is Fire-IT's property and must be returned to us. Report any fault to Fire-IT so that we can co-ordinate with Frogfoot. You are liable for damage to or loss of the Frogfoot equipment, and the cost is obtained from Frogfoot and billed to you.

The Optical Network Terminal, the router or modem MetroFibre installs, its power supply and any other MetroFibre equipment fitted at the premises remain MetroFibre's property at all times. This equipment belongs to the line, not to you: it stays at the address. If you move out, leave all of it installed and in place, including the power supply. Do not remove, relocate, reset, modify, damage or tamper with it. This is separate from the Fire-IT router described above, which is Fire-IT's property and must be returned to us. Report any fault to Fire-IT so that we can co-ordinate with MetroFibre. You are liable for damage to or loss of the MetroFibre equipment, and the cost is obtained from MetroFibre and billed to you.

A Fire-IT invoice is prima facie proof of the amount you owe. Amounts are due and payable by the due date shown on the invoice. An extension may be granted in writing at Fire-IT's discretion and cannot be applied unilaterally by you. Fire-IT issues invoices periodically, normally monthly, and you remain liable for payment whether or not you received an invoice. To the fullest extent the law allows, payments are made free of exchange, without deduction or set-off, by debit order from a bank account you nominate or by another method Fire-IT determines.

If you do not pay an amount by its due date, that amount bears interest from the due date until it is paid, at 2% a month on the amount outstanding, which is a rate of 24% a year, and it is not compounded. Where the law sets a lower maximum rate for your account, that lower maximum applies instead. No separate penalty or late payment fee is payable. Interest, together with any fees and collection costs, stops accruing once it equals the unpaid capital that was owed when you first fell into default, and starts running again only once you have brought the account up to date. A failed debit order attracts an administration fee of R150 excluding VAT (R172.50 including VAT), plus the bank's charges; where the National Credit Act 34 of 2005 applies to your account, that fee and any collection costs are limited to the maximum that Act and its regulations allow. If an amount remains unpaid, Fire-IT may suspend the service until it is paid in full, and minimum charges continue while it is suspended. Fire-IT may also hand the account over for collection. Before Fire-IT reports any adverse information about you to a credit bureau it will give you at least 20 business days' written notice of its intention to do so, and it will not report the information if you pay the arrears within that period, if you have disputed the amount in writing on reasonable grounds, or if the debt has prescribed. These are the same rules as clause 5 of the Fire-IT Standard Terms and Conditions.

This home service is supplied month to month unless this proposal says otherwise. Either party may cancel by giving one calendar month's notice, and notice must reach Fire-IT on or before the 25th of the month. Notice received on or before the 25th runs from the 1st of the following month, and the service ends on the last day of that month. Notice received after the 25th runs from the 1st of the month after that. Either way, one further full month of service is payable. Notice is given in writing to accounts@fire-it.co.za, or by submitting the cancellation in the Fire-IT client portal, which counts as written notice and carries the same one-month charge. You remain liable for charges up to the final billing date. If the service is cancelled or transferred to another internet service provider within 6 months of the activation date, or is cancelled before it goes live, a cancellation fee of R1,000 excluding VAT (R1,150 including VAT) is payable before the cancellation is processed. All moves and relocations require one calendar month's notice on the same terms and depend on coverage at the new address.

Fire-IT may amend the acceptable-use terms of this agreement, and will publish the current version. Fire-IT may act against anyone breaching this agreement or acting unlawfully, to the fullest extent of the law, and may investigate and act on forms of abuse not listed here. Fire-IT may monitor user and network traffic to protect the security of its systems, may suspend or terminate a service where the safety or integrity of its resources is at risk, and may remove content it regards as unlawful. Fire-IT does not guarantee the security of data transmitted over its network; you are responsible for safeguarding your own data. If Fire-IT does not enforce a term, that is not a waiver of its right to enforce it later.

Nothing in this agreement is intended to contravene the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 or to take away any right it gives you. Where any part of this agreement would do so, that part applies only to the extent the Act allows and the rest of the agreement stays in force.

South African law governs this agreement. The parties consent to the jurisdiction of the Magistrate's Court or the High Court of South Africa, Gauteng Division, where applicable. Fire-IT's liability for this service is limited to the fees paid for it in the three months before the event giving rise to the claim. Fire-IT is not liable for indirect loss, loss of profit, loss of data, business interruption or consequential damages. If any provision is found invalid, the rest of the agreement remains in force.

This agreement applies together with the general terms that cover every Fire-IT service. Read the Standard Terms and Conditions.