Standard Form of Agreement – Section C: Common Terms

We are a carriage service provider. For most of our Services we supply you using networks, systems and wholesale services provided by Suppliers:

(a) nbn — for nbn Home and Business Plans, and for Enterprise Fibre delivered over nbn Enterprise Ethernet; (b) Telstra Wholesale — for mobile Services over the Telstra Wholesale Mobile Network, and for Enterprise Fibre delivered over Telstra Wholesale Ethernet Access; (c) Optus — for our 4G Backup Service; and (d) other carriers and carriage service providers for call origination, termination, transit and numbering.

For Hosted Voice we are in a different position: we operate our own IP Voice platform, so for that Service we are not simply reselling someone else's product — see the Our IP Voice Network section below.

Where we rely on a Supplier's network, that has practical consequences which apply across those Services:

(e) the coverage, capacity, technical characteristics and performance of your Service are determined by the underlying network, not by us; (f) the timeframes within which a Service can be connected, changed or repaired are largely determined by the service levels our Suppliers owe us, which we describe for each product in Section B; (g) a fault in a Supplier's network must be rectified by that Supplier — our role is to identify, report, escalate and track it, and to keep you informed; and (h) if a Supplier changes, withdraws, suspends or decommissions an underlying service or technology, that may affect or end your Service — see When external factors affect your Service in Section A.

We choose which Suppliers and networks we use, and we may change them, provided the change does not reduce your rights under this Agreement or materially reduce the Service you receive without notice given in accordance with the Changes we may make to this Agreement clause in Section A.

We remain responsible to you for supplying your Service under this Agreement. Nothing in this section limits our obligations to you under the Australian Consumer Law, an applicable industry code or standard, or the rest of this Agreement.

Our agreements with Suppliers require us to pass on certain terms, restrictions and information to our customers. Examples include the restrictions on how a mobile Service may be used, set out in Uses that are not permitted on a mobile Service in Section B, and the obligation to pass on information about planned works described in Planned works and maintenance below.

Where a Supplier requires us to pass on a term or restriction:

(a) we will tell you about it in this Agreement or in a notice, in plain language; (b) we will not rely on it to reduce your rights beyond what the Supplier's requirement actually needs; and (c) if a Supplier introduces a new requirement that has a material detrimental impact on you, we will treat it as a change to this Agreement and give you notice, and the exit right, described in the Changes we may make to this Agreement clause in Section A.

We cannot waive a restriction imposed on us by a Supplier, even where we would like to.

From time to time we, or a Supplier, need to carry out work that interrupts or degrades a Service — for example maintenance, repairs, replacement of equipment, capacity upgrades, or migration of a Service between systems.

Where we plan work of this kind, we will give you reasonable notice, schedule it outside business hours where practicable, and keep the interruption as short as reasonably possible.

Where a Supplier plans work that affects your Service, we depend on that Supplier telling us about it. We are required to pass on to you information a Supplier gives us about planned works, and we will do so promptly using the contact details we hold for you and, where relevant, our published network status information. The amount of notice we can give you depends on the notice we receive.

A Service interruption caused by planned work notified in accordance with this clause is not a fault, and is not a failure by us to supply your Service.

An unplanned outage is an unexpected interruption affecting a Service, often affecting multiple customers.

When we become aware of an unplanned outage affecting your Service, we will:

(a) publish information about it — including the areas and services affected and our best estimate of restoration — at www.lightningip.com.au/outages. Past outages are archived at outages.lip.net.au; (b) update that information as we learn more, including where a restoration estimate changes; (c) report and escalate the outage to the relevant Supplier where the cause sits in their network; and (d) handle a complaint about an outage in accordance with our Complaints Handling Policy (Section D), including keeping you informed while the outage continues.

If you report a major fault outside our support hours, an on-call technician will be made available — see Who we are and how to contact us in Section A.

Where a Service is unavailable for an extended period, you may be entitled to a credit of recurring Charges for the period of unavailability. Ask us, and we will assess it. Nothing in this clause limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law or under the CSG where it applies.

You can report a fault at any time on 1300 994 884, or through the contact channels published at lightningip.com.au.

Before you report a fault, please carry out the basic checks we publish for your Service — for example checking our network status information for a known outage, restarting your equipment, checking cables and power, testing on a different device where possible, and (for a fixed Service) testing a wired connection as well as Wi-Fi. Our Coverage and Service Availability Disclosure (Section D) sets out the diagnostic path we will ask you to follow.

When you report a fault we will give you a reference number. Please quote it when you contact us about that fault. Please give us the information we reasonably need to investigate — including what is affected, when it started, whether it is constant or intermittent, and specific examples with dates and times.

When you report a fault, we will:

(a) investigate and try to resolve it remotely where we can; (b) where the fault appears to be in a Supplier's network, raise it with that Supplier, escalate it in accordance with that Supplier's processes, and track it to resolution; (c) tell you what we find, what happens next, and what the expected timeframe is; and (d) tell you when we consider the fault resolved, and reopen it if the problem recurs.

We handle faults consistently with the applicable customer and network fault management industry code, and we will meet the CSG repair timeframes where the CSG applies to your Service.

For Services where the CSG does not apply, the practical repair timeframe is set by the service levels our Supplier owes us. For nbn Services those service levels are published — see the Wholesale Broadband Agreement — Service Levels Schedule, nbn® Ethernet Product Module, section 8.1 (Service Levels for End User Fault rectification), available on nbn's website. As a guide, a fault that does not require nbn to attend your premises is targeted for rectification by 5:00pm the next Business Day in urban areas, extending to the second, third or (in isolated areas) tenth Business Day depending on your location and whether work at the premises or in the network is required.

Add one Business Day to those targets for a Service that does not have an enhanced service level agreement. We verify a reported fault before passing it to nbn — checking the service state, testing where we can, and ruling out causes at your premises — because a fault passed to nbn without that check can come back as a chargeable no-fault callout. That verification step takes us up to a Business Day, and it happens before nbn's own clock starts.

These are our Supplier's targets, not guarantees, and we do not control whether they are met. Where your Service has an enhanced service level agreement, the targets in your Critical Information Summary apply instead and out-of-hours faults are picked up by an on-call technician.

If investigation shows that a reported fault was caused by something other than our Service or a Supplier's network — for example Your Equipment, your internal cabling, your Wi-Fi environment, your power supply, or a third-party service — or that there was no fault, we may charge you:

(a) any Charge a Supplier passes on to us for attending or investigating; and (b) our reasonable costs of investigating, at the rates in our price list.

We will tell you before we arrange a chargeable visit that a Charge may apply and what it is likely to be, so you can decide whether to proceed. We will not charge you where the fault turns out to be in our Service or a Supplier's network, or where we did not warn you that a Charge might apply.

We will not charge you for a repeat visit for the same unresolved fault where the earlier visit did not fix it.

Some faults and performance problems are caused by conditions at or around your premises rather than by the network, including:

(a) electrical or radio interference from equipment at or near your premises; (b) changes to the physical environment after installation — for example new buildings, vegetation growth, or new structures affecting a Fixed Wireless path; (c) damage to, or degradation of, cabling or equipment at your premises; or (d) relocation or reorientation of equipment, including a Fixed Wireless antenna or a modem.

Where a fault or performance problem is caused by something in this clause, service levels and repair timeframes do not apply to it, and you must either take reasonable steps within your control to remove the cause, or ask us to arrange work to address it — which may include relocating equipment, at your cost.

We will tell you what we have found, and what your options are, before any chargeable work is arranged.

Phone numbers, IP addresses and other public identifiers we allocate to your Service are issued in accordance with the Telecommunications Numbering Plan 2025 and are not owned by you or by us.

You have the right to use a number allocated to your Service while we supply that Service, and (where the number is portable) the right to transfer it to another provider. You acquire no other rights in it, and you cannot sell, transfer or trade it other than by porting.

We may need to change a number allocated to your Service where required by the Numbering Plan, by the ACMA, by a Supplier, or for network or technical reasons. We will give you as much notice as we reasonably can, and we will only do so where there is no reasonable alternative.

If a Service is cancelled and the number is not ported away, the number may be quarantined and then returned to the pool of available numbers, after which it cannot be recovered.

We are required by law to provide information about each public number we supply, and the customer associated with it, to the Integrated Public Number Database (IPND). The IPND is a national database established under Part 4 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth) and administered under the applicable IPND industry code.

Information in the IPND is used for purposes set by law, including:

(a) providing location and contact information to the emergency call service and emergency service organisations; (b) publishing public number directories and providing directory assistance; (c) law enforcement and national security purposes; and (d) approved research and public-interest purposes, such as safety alerts.

You must give us accurate information for the IPND, including the service address for your Service, and tell us if it changes — emergency services may rely on it. We may submit your information to the IPND ourselves or have a Supplier do it on our behalf.

We handle IPND information in accordance with the Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth) and our Privacy Policy (Section D).

Where your Service has a public number, you can choose whether that number is listed in public number directories and available through directory assistance.

You can ask us for:

(a) a listed number — your name, number and address may appear in public directories; (b) a partially suppressed listing — for example, your address withheld; or (c) an unlisted (silent) number — your details are not published in directories or given out by directory assistance.

We do not charge you to have a number unlisted.

An unlisted number is still provided to the IPND, because emergency service organisations and agencies with lawful authority must be able to access it. Choosing an unlisted number does not prevent your number being displayed to a person you call by calling line identification — you can ask us about blocking calling line identification separately, though it cannot be blocked for calls to the emergency call service.

When you ask us to transfer an existing Service to us, you authorise us to arrange the transfer with your current provider and any relevant Supplier, and to exchange the information necessary to do so.

When a Service transfers to us:

(a) there may be a short interruption to your service during the transfer; (b) features and services you have with your current provider — for example email addresses, voicemail messages, add-ons or bundled services — generally do not transfer, and you may lose access to them; (c) you remain responsible for amounts you owe your current provider, including any early termination charge, and for cancelling any related services they supply that you no longer want; and (d) a transfer may fail if the information you give us does not match the information your current provider holds, or if the Service is not eligible to transfer.

For nbn broadband Services, transfers are carried out in accordance with the applicable nbn access transfer industry code. For mobile Services, see Bringing your number to us in Section B.

We will tell you if a transfer fails, and why, and we will try again where we reasonably can.

You can transfer a Service away from us at any time by arranging it with your new provider. We will not obstruct or delay a valid transfer request, and we will not require you to contact us first.

When a Service transfers away from us:

(a) your Agreement for that Service ends when the transfer completes, and the After your Service ends clause in Section A applies; (b) you remain responsible for Charges up to that time, and for any early termination Charge that applies; and (c) we will issue a final bill in the normal way.

If a transfer away from us happens without your authority, tell us — we will investigate and, where the transfer was invalid, work with the other provider and any relevant Supplier to have the Service returned to us in accordance with the applicable industry code.

Where a Service is capable of carrying voice calls, calls to the Triple Zero (000) emergency call service are carried free of charge, in accordance with the Telecommunications (Emergency Call Service) Determination and the applicable emergency call services industry code. We do not bar access to the emergency call service, including where a Service is restricted or suspended, where it is technically feasible to maintain it.

The limitations that apply depend on the Service:

(a) nbn Home and Business Plans, and Enterprise Fibre — the Service, and any phone service carried over it, will not work in a power outage or while the connection is down. See Your Service will not work in a power outage in the nbn Home and Business Plans terms. (b) Mobile — a call to the emergency call service requires mobile coverage at your location. Where your own network has no coverage, a mobile handset may be able to reach the emergency call service over another carrier's network, but this depends on the device, the SIM and local conditions. Location information provided with a mobile emergency call is approximate. (c) Hosted Voice — a VoIP service depends on power and a working internet connection, and the location passed to the emergency call service is the service address we hold for your Service. If you move a handset or softphone to a different location without telling us, emergency services may be given the wrong address. This matters more than any other limitation in this clause — see the Hosted Voice terms in Section B. (d) 4G Backup — this is a data-only Service. It does not carry voice and cannot be used to call the emergency call service. (e) Overseas — Australian emergency numbers do not work overseas; find out the local emergency number for the country you are visiting.

You should always have an alternative way to contact emergency services, such as a charged mobile phone. If anyone at your premises has a life-threatening medical condition, read our Priority Assistance and Vulnerable Customers Policy (Section D) — we are not able to provide Priority Assistance, and that policy explains how to obtain it.

The networks we use to supply your Services are shared resources. Capacity on the nbn network and on the mobile network is contended, which means the performance available to you at any time is affected by what other users are doing.

We manage our network, and the wholesale capacity we buy, to provide a reasonable experience to all our customers. This may include prioritising traffic types, managing congestion, and taking action in relation to use that is excessive or unreasonable, in accordance with our Acceptable Use Policy (Section D) and, for mobile, Fair use of mobile Services in Section B.

We are also required to comply with fair use requirements our Suppliers impose on us — including nbn's fair use policy, which is based on the principle that its infrastructure is a shared resource and that products supplied as mass-market inputs are designed for use within a single premises.

Where we need to manage your Service, we will act reasonably and proportionately, contact you first where practicable, and tell you what we have observed and what you can do about it.

Any equipment you connect to a Service must:

(a) comply with the applicable ACMA technical standards and labelling requirements for connection to a telecommunications network in Australia; (b) be in good working order and not present a safety risk or a risk of damage or interference to a network; and (c) be used in accordance with its manufacturer's instructions.

You are responsible for Your Equipment, including its configuration, security, software updates and maintenance. We may require you to disconnect equipment that does not comply with this clause, or that we or a Supplier reasonably believe is interfering with a network or another customer's service.

Equipment we supply is covered by our Equipment Warranty and Returns Policy (Section D). Equipment installed by nbn at your premises belongs to nbn — see Modems and equipment in Section B.

Cabling work that connects to a telecommunications network in Australia must be performed by a registered cabler, in accordance with the cabling provisions of the Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth), the ACMA cabling rules, and the applicable customer cabling industry code.

You must not carry out, or allow anyone who is not a registered cabler to carry out, cabling work at your premises that connects to your Service. Cabling on your side of the network boundary is your responsibility, including its repair and replacement, unless we have agreed otherwise in writing.

If a fault is caused by non-compliant cabling or cabling work, or by cabling on your side of the network boundary, the When a callout can be charged for clause may apply, and we may require the cabling to be rectified by a registered cabler before we can restore your Service.

As a carriage service provider we have legal obligations relating to network security and lawful assistance, including:

(a) obligations under Part 14 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth) to protect networks and facilities from unauthorised access and interference, and to do our best to prevent our network being used to commit an offence; (b) obligations under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth) to give agencies with lawful authority access to communications and information, and to retain specified data under Part 5-1A of that Act; and (c) obligations to comply with directions, notices and requests properly made by the ACMA, a law enforcement agency, a national security agency, an emergency service organisation, the eSafety Commissioner, or a court.

Where we act to comply with an obligation of this kind — including by suspending, restricting or intercepting a Service, retaining or disclosing information, or blocking access to content — that action is not a breach of this Agreement by us and is not a failure to supply your Service.

We will not disclose information about you or your Service to an agency except where the disclosure is required or authorised by law, and we record and handle such disclosures in accordance with our Privacy Policy (Section D). Where the law permits us to tell you about a disclosure, we will; often it does not.

We are required to retain certain information about your Service and your communications for two years under Part 5-1A of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth). This includes information about the fact and circumstances of a communication — for example the services used, the parties, and the time and duration — but not the content of your communications.

Because this retention is required by law:

(a) we cannot delete this information at your request, and a request to delete your personal information does not extend to it; and (b) we must keep it even after your Service and this Agreement end.

We protect this information and restrict access to it, as described in our Privacy Policy (Section D).

We are required to take action to reduce scam calls and scam SMS under the applicable industry code, including identifying, tracing and blocking scam traffic, sharing information with other providers and with regulators, and disrupting scam activity on our network.

This means we may block, filter or refuse to carry a call or message that we reasonably believe forms part of scam activity. Filtering of this kind is not perfect — occasionally a legitimate call or message may be blocked. If you believe a legitimate communication has been blocked, tell us and we will investigate.

We do not charge you for taking this action, and it is not a failure to supply your Service. If you receive a scam call or message, you can report it to us and to the ACMA. Never give account credentials, one-time codes or payment details to someone who contacts you unexpectedly — we will never ask you for a password.

If you receive a communication on your Service that is threatening, harassing, offensive or life-threatening, contact us. We handle communications of this kind in accordance with the applicable industry code on life-threatening and unwelcome communications.

Depending on the nature of the communication, we may be able to:

(a) give you practical advice, including about barring numbers, changing your number at no charge, or using calling line identification options; (b) investigate the origin of the communication; and (c) where the communication is life-threatening, act urgently and provide information to the police or another emergency service organisation.

We cannot usually give you the identity of the person who contacted you — the law restricts what we may disclose to you, and information about the origin of a communication is generally provided to police rather than to you. If there is an immediate threat to safety, call the police on Triple Zero (000) first.

If you are affected by family or domestic violence, our Priority Assistance and Vulnerable Customers Policy (Section D) sets out the additional support available.

You are responsible for your own data, including backing up anything you cannot afford to lose. We do not provide a backup service unless your plan expressly includes one.

We take reasonable steps to protect information and data we hold, as described in our Privacy Policy (Section D), but no system is completely secure. To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for loss of, or damage to, your data — except to the extent the loss is caused by our failure to take reasonable care.

When a Service ends, we may delete data associated with it as described in After your Service ends in Section A. Take a copy of anything you want to keep before then.

You should also secure your own networks and devices — keep firmware and software up to date, use strong passwords, and do not leave a network open in a way that lets others misuse your Service. See our Acceptable Use Policy (Section D).

Your Service gives you access to services, content and applications supplied by third parties. We do not supply, control or endorse them, and your use of them is governed by your agreement with that third party, not by this Agreement.

We are not responsible for third-party services or content, including their availability, performance, security, accuracy or lawfulness — see What we are not responsible for in Section A. If a third-party service does not work as you expect, your rights are against that provider.

Data used to access third-party services counts toward your plan's data usage, including where the third party charges you separately for the service. Some third-party services may be charged to your Lightning IP account only where you have expressly authorised that arrangement with us.

Where we resell or bundle a third-party service as part of a plan, the terms for that service will be identified in your Critical Information Summary, and we remain responsible to you for supplying it under this Agreement.

Our Hosted Voice Service is carried on an IP Voice platform that we own and operate. This makes our position different from our other Services:

(a) we are the carriage service provider for voice services carried on this platform, and the platform's configuration, capacity, features and maintenance are ours to manage; (b) we still depend on other carriers for call origination and termination, transit, and the allocation of numbers — a call to or from a number outside our platform is handed to or received from another carrier; and (c) the internet connection that carries voice traffic to and from your premises may be one of ours or someone else's.

So when something affects a voice Service, the cause may sit with our platform, with an interconnecting carrier, or with the internet connection in between. We will tell you which, and we will not use the fact that part of the path belongs to someone else as a reason not to investigate.

Where a future Service of ours is carried on this platform, the terms in this section apply to it as well.

Voice traffic is more sensitive than most internet traffic. It tolerates low bandwidth well but is degraded by delay, jitter (variation in delay) and packet loss, which is why a connection that feels fine for browsing can still produce poor calls.

Call quality on a Hosted Voice Service depends on:

(a) the internet connection carrying the traffic, including its contention and stability; (b) your local network — switches, cabling, Wi-Fi, and any firewall or router doing traffic shaping or session handling; (c) how much other traffic is competing with voice at the time, and whether your equipment prioritises voice; and (d) the device or softphone in use.

Where we supply the internet connection as well as the voice Service, we can look at the whole path and will do so. Where the internet connection is not ours, we will diagnose what we can see from our platform and tell you what we find, but we cannot fix a fault or a configuration problem on another provider's connection or inside your own network. In that situation the quality of your voice Service is limited by that connection, and that limit is not a fault in our Service — see What we are not responsible for in Section A.

Because we operate the IP Voice platform, we carry out our own maintenance, upgrades and configuration changes on it.

We will:

(a) schedule work that may interrupt or degrade voice Services outside business hours wherever practicable; (b) notify you in advance in accordance with the Planned works and maintenance section, using the contact details we hold for you; (c) keep the interruption as short as reasonably possible; and (d) tell you where a change will alter how a feature behaves, rather than letting you discover it on a call.

An interruption caused by planned work notified in this way is not a fault and is not a failure by us to supply your Service. Emergency work occasionally has to happen without notice — where it does, we will tell you as soon as we can and explain what happened.

Calls between your Service and numbers on other networks pass through interconnecting carriers. Where one of those carriers has an outage or a routing problem, it can affect your Service even though our platform is operating normally — for example, calls to a particular destination or carrier may fail while everything else works.

When that happens we will:

(a) identify where the problem sits and tell you; (b) raise and escalate it with the carrier concerned, and re-route traffic where we are able to; and (c) publish information about it in our network status information where it affects multiple customers.

We are not responsible for an interconnecting carrier's failure to carry traffic, but we are responsible for pursuing it and keeping you informed — the same position as applies to our other Suppliers under We supply your Service using other carriers' networks.

Numbers used on the IP Voice platform are allocated in accordance with the Telecommunications Numbering Plan 2025, and the general position on numbers is set out in the Phone numbers and public identifiers section.

Because we operate the platform:

(a) we are responsible for providing and keeping current the customer and service information for each number on it in the Integrated Public Number Database, which is what emergency service organisations rely on for location. This is why the service address you give us for a voice Service matters so much, and why you must tell us when it changes; (b) we hold the call records for traffic carried on the platform, and our data retention obligations under Part 5-1A of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth) apply to them directly — see Data we are required to keep; and (c) obligations to assist agencies with lawful authority, including interception, apply to us as the operator of the platform rather than to an upstream supplier — see Our obligations to protect networks and assist agencies.

We do not listen to, record or disclose the content of your calls except where the law requires or authorises it, or where you have asked us to enable a call recording feature on your Service.

Voice platforms are a target for toll fraud — attackers who gain access to a PBX or a set of credentials and use them to place large volumes of calls to expensive international or premium destinations. It can generate thousands of dollars of Charges in hours, and it usually happens overnight or over a weekend.

We monitor traffic on the platform for patterns that suggest fraud, including unusual call volumes, unusual destinations, and calling outside a customer's normal hours. Where we detect a pattern of that kind we may:

(a) bar calling to the destinations involved, or bar outbound calling on the affected Service; (b) suspend the affected account or extension; and (c) contact you to confirm whether the traffic is legitimate.

We will take the least disruptive action that addresses the risk, and we will try to keep inbound calling and access to the emergency call service available. Because the whole point is to stop the loss quickly, we may act before contacting you — and we would rather briefly interrupt your outbound calling than let a fraud run.

Keeping your PBX, handsets and credentials secure is your responsibility — see Keeping your account and Service secure in Section A and the security requirements in our Acceptable Use Policy (Section D). How Charges arising from unauthorised use are treated is set out in You are responsible for use of your Service in Section A.