PhoneLine+ Terms & Conditions
17th March 2021
These terms and conditions apply to the PhoneLine+ service and, where appropriate, its add-on services, and are supplemental to your base supply agreement with Gamma, whose provisions continue to apply. In case of a conflict between the base supply agreement and these terms and conditions, the latter will apply.
Defined terms used that are not defined in these terms and conditions shall have the meanings attributed to them in the base supply agreement.
1. Setup of Service
1.1. Sale of this Service to the Company will be subject to certification by Gamma of the Company’s competency in the sale and support of the Service according to the following provisions.
1.2. A trial period may be arranged at the Company’s option ahead of certification to enable product familiarisation and evaluation. Certification must be achieved at the end of the trial period prior to any sales by the Company to Customers or End Users being undertaken.
1.3. Certification by Gamma will be subject to a minimum of one of the Company’s employees successfully completing a training programme for each of three areas, namely sales, technical, and support, together with a further training programme for any additional bolt on services the Company wants to take. Employees attending the training programme will be expected to pass a test at the end of the programme to demonstrate competence.
1.4. Certification of the Company for the Service will be at Gamma’s sole discretion but will not be unreasonably withheld or delayed. Certification for the Service may be withdrawn by Gamma if in Gamma’s reasonable opinion the Company’s competency in the sale and support of the Service has been permanently impaired, for example by the termination of the employment of the relevant trained staff, or other similar events.
1.5. Gamma may require re-certification of the Company after the release of a major upgrade to the Service or where certification has been withdrawn by Gamma under the provisions of paragraph 1.4 above.
1.6. The Company acknowledges that support on the Service will only be provided by Gamma to companies which have attained certification.
2. Connection to the service
The Service is made up of three core components:
a. Handsets: PhoneLine+ Approved Handsets and Analogue Terminal Adapters (being those listed in PhoneLine+ price list) and ‘clients software’ (as defined in the relevant service literature) are provided through Gamma following an order from the Company.
b. Access: if provided by Gamma this will be subject to the terms and conditions specific to the Gamma service chosen as an access service. If provided by a third party access to route signalling and traffic, Company’s Customer or End User is subject to the terms and conditions of the agreement with the third party concerned. Access is defined as any data connection which connects equipment and ultimately PhoneLine+ handsets and clients software, for example (but not limited to) routers, desktop and laptop devices, and mobile/tablet devices.
c. Gamma Network: The Gamma Network is protected and authenticated connections to the Service through Session Board Controllers (SBC), which are deemed to be the connection point between the Gamma Service and the access connection. Gamma will provide the Service described and route all traffic.
2.1. Gamma’s responsibility does not extend to the transport between the point of connection (SBCs) and the End User or to any equipment in operation beyond this point, both of which shall be the responsibility of the Company.
2.2. Gamma’s responsibility for handsets and clients software, is purely to support the Service as described for these components. Connection of these services to End User LAN and equipment shall be the responsibility of the Company.
2.3. Gamma does not issue any IP Address to be used with this service. Access to and use of this address is controlled by the internet authorities and its use is subject to any rules which they may prescribe. Gamma reserves the right to withdraw or change this address if for any reason the address ceases to be available.
2.4. Title to all intellectual property rights to the configuration of the PhoneLine+ service as set out in the PhoneLine+ handsets or the Portal is and shall remain at all times the property of Gamma provided that in the event title to the PhoneLine+ handsets is transferred to the Company or the Customer, Gamma hereby grants the Company or the Customer (as applicable) a non-exclusive, free of charge, non-transferable and non-sublicensable licence to use such configuration on the PhoneLine+ handsets for the purposes of providing or using the services (as applicable) and for the duration of the relevant contract or order for the PhoneLine+ services.
2.5. Handsets supplied for use with Gamma’s PhoneLine+ service cannot be used with any other service and Gamma is under no obligation to adapt any handset for general use at any time either before or after title passes to the Company.
3. Submission of order and support of service
3.1. Gamma will provide the Company with a Portal account through which the Service can be ordered and controlled.
3.2. Gamma shall use reasonable endeavours to maintain (but does not guarantee) access to such accounts 24 hours in every day on every day of the year, except where planned changes and/or maintenance is performed (at times published in advance), or emergency maintenance is required.
3.3. Gamma shall not be liable for any losses caused by any restriction in such access.
4. CLI Presentation
4.1. Where an A number is being presented:
i. The Company must ensure that the A Number is of a national significant format, is allocated to the End User and that such End User possesses all necessary permissions in respect of the lines in question;
ii. The Company must ensure that under the terms of the CLI code of practice the A Number must be a number that is allocated to a Customer, is in use, connected to a terminal and capable of receiving calls;
5. Emergency services 999/112 Responsibilities
5.1 The PhoneLine+ service supports 999/112 emergency call services and such calls will be routed to the national emergency call handling agents. However, these services do not operate in the same way as PSTN fixed line 999/112 public emergency call services and connection to such services may not be possible in the event of a service outage caused by loss of End User connectivity to the internet for whatever reason. In such circumstances the End User should use their mobile to make the emergency call. Furthermore, it may on occasions not be possible for emergency services personnel to identify the End User’s location and telephone number so this information should be stated promptly and clearly by the End User when making such a call.
5.2 The Company agrees to incorporate the above information relating to public emergency call services into its contracts with its Customers, and shall be responsible for informing all its Customers and End Users (including potential Customers and End Users) of the limitations of VoIP originated Emergency Service Calls.
5.3 The Company agrees to provide to Gamma for each subscriber full details of the End User’s name and address (including post code) to enable Gamma to fulfil its obligations under Ofcom regulations to pass such details on to the call handling authority.
6. Pricing and Invoicing
6.1 All Charges due to Gamma for traffic routed via any IP address or for fixed rental or one-off Charges related to the Service and defined in the PhoneLine+ price list shall be paid in full by the Company by the due date notwithstanding that they may have arisen from unauthorized, fraudulent or illegal use (except for fraud on the part of Gamma or its employees acting in the course of their employment) and whether or not they derive from installation and access arrangements which have been authorized by Gamma.
6.2 Gamma reserves the right to increase the Charges for this service on seven days written notice to the Company in the event that any change in applicable law or regulations results in additional costs being incurred by Gamma.
6.3 Subject to the provisions of earlier termination set out in the base supply agreement, the initial term of each PhoneLine+ subscription is as set out in the relevant order. Upon expiry of such initial term, the subscription shall be renewed on an indefinite basis subject to each party’s right to terminate for convenience at any time upon a thirty (30) day notice to the other party.
7. Fair Usage Policy
7.1 The Company shall not or allow its Customers to use the Service:
i. excessively and beyond what Gamma deems is reasonable but will use its reasonable endeavours to actively promote the Service to its End Users;
ii. in a way which imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure or the Service;
iii. for automated, high volume or otherwise excessive call-forwarding, auto-dialling and/or call-blasting activities; and/or
iv. to make automated, continuous, extensive or excessive calls using the Service beyond what Gamma considers (at our absolute discretion) to be reasonable business use.
7.2 Unlimited minutes are included in all PhoneLine+ packages to the following destinations: UK Geographic (01, 02), UK Mobile, UK National Non-Geographic (03), Australia, Australia Mobile, Canada, Ireland, Ireland Mobile, New Zealand, New Zealand Mobile, USA and USA Alaska. However Gamma reserves the right to invoice the Company for excessive costs of conveyance caused by deliberate aggregation by the Company of calls to a particular dial string within a destination, the engagement by the Company in arbitrage, deliberate manipulation of call profiles or other similar acts of a non-commercial nature.
7.3 In the event that it is suspected that the Customer has breached the fair usage policy above, at Gamma’s absolute discretion Gamma reserve the right to:
i. suspend and/or terminate the Customer’s access to the Service immediately without notice; and/or
ii. modify the Customer’s pricing plan for access to the Service to reflect any excessive use of the Service or abuse of billing periods to avoid and manipulate payment to Gamma, including, without limitation, converting the Customer’s pricing plan to a fully-metred usage plan and charging pro rata for Service access.
7.4 The PhoneLine+ Service is charged on a per user per month basis, so each user must have their own account and sharing of user accounts is not permitted under any circumstances. Breach of this clause 7.4 shall be deemed as a material breach of this agreement by the Company.
7.5 The Customer must not abuse or manipulate the free trial period and/or the billing period to avoid paying for any Service Fees due to Gamma. If Gamma suspect, at our absolute discretion, that the Customer is abusing such periods, Gamma reserve the right to suspend and/or cancel the Customer’s use of, and access to, the Service without notice.
8. Minimum User Machine Requirements
8.1 The service provides user access via a downloadable windows or MAC Client together with a browser based option. The browser-based version is designed to support all major browsers and operating systems, and utilises the webRTC programming interface. Each release is tested against the following browsers:
• Chrome (the current version at the time of version release)
• Edge (the current version at the time of version release)
• Safari (the current version at the time of version release)
8.2 Whilst it is not possible to ensure that breaking changes do not occur as evergreen browsers (Chrome and Edge) update, best endeavours are in place to ensure compatibility and swift resolution of any problems.
8.3 Please note that the hosted portal is not guaranteed to work on all smartphone/tablet devices and operating systems. On completion of provisioning of the service, the user should perform a pre-test to ensure the service work with their browser/smartphone/tablet device.