• Internet Transparency Disclosures

    XO Communications strives to provide the best small business broadband experience to our customers using reasonable network management practices consistent with industry standards. Many XO small business broadband services enable access to the Internet on a standalone basis or in conjunction with other specialized services, such as XO VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). The network management practices XO Communications employs in conjunction with our small business broadband services ensures quality service performance for our customers.

    What broadband services are available?

    Information and detailed service descriptions, including available speeds, for our small business broadband services are available here.

    What terms and conditions apply XO small business broadband services?

    The terms and conditions of all of our services are available here.

    What policies apply to XO small business broadband services?

    All of our products and services are governed by XO broadband policies, including our Privacy Policy and our Acceptable Use Policy.

    What are the prices for XO small business broadband services?

    Pricing for our services vary. Depending on the services you purchase and your agreement with XO Communications, fees for early termination, additional network services and usage charges may apply. Please contact us for detailed pricing information and any questions regarding pricing.

    How does XO Communications alleviate congestion in its network?

    XO Communications monitors its network in order to provide our customers with full access to all lawful activities, content, applications, and services customers seek to access on the Internet. We monitor our network for congestion and to protect the security of our network.

    Rather than employ congestion management practices, XO Communications prefers to implement capacity management in a proactive manner. XO Communications implements the following measures to manage capacity: 1) XO Communications upgrades backbone or region-to-region and metro router links when the peak utilization has reached 65% on a point-to-point link; and 2) XO Communications will upgrade or increase a customer’s capacity when connections to the customers become congested, but only with the consent of the customer. For example, if the customer’s purchased bandwidth capacity is 3 Mbps and the link between the customer and XO Communications becomes congested, the customer is contacted about upgrading or increasing this capacity. It is not the practice or responsibility of XO Communications to limit traffic over the link in any way.

    XO Communications may engage in other congestion avoidance measures depending on the service. Specifically, some services require reservation of bandwidth for critical applications on the IP backbone. For example, in the case of a customer that purchases an XO IP Virtual Private Network (VPN) in addition to an XO small business product, a short path could be built from edge router to edge router over the XO core network to ensure adequate capacity for the IP VPN and to avoid causing congestion on the broadband service. In addition, many of our small business broadband services are bundled with specialized services. Some of our services enable customers to classify and route their own traffic based on application type, which safeguards priority traffic, such as VoIP, over lower priority traffic. For certain services, XO Communications may also prioritize voice and data traffic between an XO edge router and customer premises equipment upon request. Other than for malicious activity, XO Communications does not restrict the use of applications, devices or content.

    XO Communications offers a suite of analytical tools to help optimize network performance for some of our managed services. Information on these tools is available here.

    How does XO Communications ensure its network is secure?

    XO Communications makes use of a variety of security mechanisms and practices to protect traffic on our network. Customers should be aware that should their actions inadvertently impact other XO customers, XO Communications will take necessary actions to terminate that activity. XO Communications also makes use of several strategies to detect and mitigate Denial-of-Service and Distributed Denial-of Service attacks as well as other malicious traffic within the network.

    The XO Acceptable Use Policy strictly prohibits uses that could damage, disable, overburden or impair the operation of the XO network or services or any other party’s use or enjoyment of the XO network or services. XO services cannot be used to distribute content unlawfully, including distribution of unsolicited and/or mass e-mailings. XO Communications may perform vulnerability tests on systems residing on IP address space belonging to XO Communications which may be allocated for customer use. The purpose of such testing includes, but is not limited to, testing of mail servers or proxy servers for unrestricted third party relaying. XO Communications uses commercially reasonable efforts to ensure that such testing will not adversely affect service provided to customers or compromise the security of customers’ network. XO Communications will act on all issues that violate our Acceptable Use Policy. XO Communications may require a customer to correct any system vulnerability upon notification and/or suspend or terminate operations of a known compromised system. Any activities directed at our network elements will result in either the immediate suspension of services or possible termination of the contract.

    The XO Network Investigation team is a good source of information on how to prevent Internet abuse and network violations. Customers that receive unsolicited e-mail or are concerned about Internet abuse can obtain further information here, or by email to XO Investigations at abuse@xo.net .

    How do XO Communications small business broadband services perform?

    XO small business broadband services are developed to be suitable for a wide range of business needs. As a result, we aim to provide actual speeds that are as close to, or exceed, the target speeds of our broadband services. XO Communications measures the performance of our broadband services to ensure they provide the services and quality our customers demand.

    The customer experience of XO small business broadband services may be impacted by the use of certain bundled services, such as XO IP Flex. This allows customers to use a single circuit for both voice and data, allowing the XO dynamic bandwidth allocation feature to continuously adjust the bandwidth allocated to voice or data, giving voice traffic priority and making additional data bandwidth available when phone lines are not in use.

    Broadband Performance

    XO Small Business Products / Available Speeds 1

    All XO small business broadband speeds are confirmed to be at least the speed ordered at install. The XO small business broadband offerings are dedicated, rather than shared, services that allow for symmetric upload and download speeds. These dedicated broadband connections are insulated from the neighborhood congestion effect often experienced by some DSL and Cable Modem users.

    Additionally, XO customers may elect to install monitoring electronics like an Applications Performance Monitoring (APM) device to provide constant network diagnostic information. XO Communications continually monitors network health and performance. Network latency does not exceed parameters established in respective product Service Level Agreements (SLA) entered into between XO Communications and its customers. SLAs, at a minimum, include measurements such as latency, packet loss and jitter. All customers have visibility of XO Communications adherence to these metrics. Existing XO customers are able to monitor their connection speed real-time by using the XOStats usage reporting system which provides a robust toolkit for XO customers to analyze the network performance.

    Some issues that impact user perception of performance may be the result of factors beyond the control of XO Communications and outside of the XO network. These issues can affect the customer experience, and may include factors such as third party website congestion, malicious software, problems with other networks or natural disasters.

    Please contact XO Communications with any additional questions or concerns about our broadband services including any of the information we describe here.

    1) In some areas, customers may be served by technology subject to distance-based performance (Ethernet over Copper). Customers will be notified in the event the available speeds are impacted by distance.ensures quality service performance for our customers.