¶ Fair Usage Policy
¶ Overview
Many internet service providers use a Fair Usage Policy (FUP) to regulate customers' data usage. As a growing number of customers puts a heavier load on your network, you may need to restrict usage for customers who use a disproportionate share of bandwidth.
FUP restricts customer usage by decreasing or increasing the customer's internet speed when certain data usage parameters/limits are reached.
The Splynx FUP feature lets you:
- Define when customer traffic is counted: days and hours
- Decrease or increase speed for a customer if the defined amount of data during one day, week, or month is reached
- Block a customer when the allowed amount of data usage per day, week, or month is reached
- Permanently block a customer until the additional data is paid for
- Change the speed for a customer based on the day of the week and time of the day
Splynx applies FUP/CAP rules to customers' Internet services automatically every 5 minutes (this cannot be changed).
CAP and top-ups are configured separately from FUP rules. See Capped plans and top-ups.
¶ Defining FUP rules
To define fair usage policies, go to Tariff plans → Internet and click the arrow icon 
next to the plan you want to add FUP rules to.
In Splynx, each internet plan has independent FUP rules/settings. Examples of different FUP settings and usage are shown below.
¶ 1. Define when to account the traffic in Plan for FUP
First, define the time period for the system to account customers' traffic. Splynx accounts all traffic by default. Custom periods for accounting traffic are shown in the example below. Here, traffic is not accounted on Sundays and during the specified night hours:
When customers' online time is accounted, you can restrict the customer's online time with a FUP setting.
¶ 2. Change speed for customers when the specified data amount is reached
You can control customers who use a disproportionate share of bandwidth by limiting their internet speed based on the amount of data they use per day.
For example, you have a 100 Mbps download / 100 Mbps upload plan and want to restrict speed for customers who exceed downloads or uploads of 5 GB. You can configure FUP rules to decrease the speed for customers who exceed this limit during the day. The following image shows a FUP rule that decreases the customer's speed by 50% of the original plan once 5 GB is reached:
Check what happens when a customer downloads 2 GB per day in the Preview window of the FUP settings:
Nothing happens because the customer has not reached the 5 GB daily limit, so no FUP rule is applied. However, if a customer exceeds the 5 GB limit, their speed decreases from 100/100 Mbps to 50/50 Mbps:
You can see customers' FUP rules on the Services tab (for one customer):
or in the online list (for all customers):
¶ 3. Block customers who exceed data limits per day, week, or month
Blocking customers uses the same logic as restricting their speed; only the rule's action changes. For example, apply a FUP rule to block customers who exceed a limit of 10 GB per month.
As shown above, Splynx can combine several FUP rules under one plan. The example combines the speed limitation based on daily usage with the blocking rule based on total monthly usage.
¶ 4. Permanently block customers until they pay for additional data
This is a different type of blocking. FUP is used to optimize the customer's network usage. To block customers based on monthly data limits until they pay for additional data, use Capped services (CAP). For more information, see Capped plans and top-ups.
¶ 5. Change speed for customers based on the day of the week and time of the day
The speed of customers' internet services can be increased or decreased based on the time of day or specific days. These rules apply to off-peak hours and/or days.
Below is an example of a FUP rule that gives customers higher speed at night. This is another rule added to the same plan as in the previous examples. All settings for the daily and monthly limitations remain, and a new rule increases the speed from 100 Mbps to 200 Mbps during the night hours:
¶ 6. Override Accounting
You can override the default/configured accounting of traffic or online time rules.
These functions apply FUP rules despite the configured accounting parameters for traffic or online time.
Below are examples of default accounting of traffic and online time:
- Traffic consumption of your customers is accounted from 08:00 to 02:00
- Online time consumption of your customers is accounted from 10:00 to 02:00
Overriding accounting configuration per rule:
- Override accounting
This toggle enables or disables the override default/configured tariff values function:
- Accounting of traffic
This toggle enables or disables overriding of configured traffic accounting parameters, given that overriding is enabled:
- Accounting of online time
This toggle enables or disables overriding of configured online consumption accounting parameters, given that overriding is enabled:
¶ Examples
The examples below use the accounting periods from Override Accounting (traffic from 08:00 to 02:00, online time from 10:00 to 02:00):
Rule #1: Override accounting is enabled and is applied to traffic and online consumption accounting parameters:
Rule #2: Override accounting is disabled:
Rule #3: Override accounting is enabled and is applied to traffic and online consumption accounting parameters:
