1. Purpose and Scope
This Fair Use Policy ('Policy') sets out the acceptable and unacceptable use of the network resources provided by ABR Hosting LTD ('ABR Hosting', 'we', 'us', or 'our'). The purpose of this Policy is to ensure that the needs of all clients are met whilst preventing the misuse of services and ensuring the stability, reliability and performance of our network. This Policy is one of the Related Policies incorporated into our Terms and Conditions.
This Policy applies to all customers and users of ABR Hosting's services, including but not limited to Dedicated Servers, Virtual Private Servers (VPS), Shared Hosting, and Game Servers.
How this interacts with 'unlimited' bandwidth plans: Where a plan is marketed as having unlimited or unmetered bandwidth, that means we do not cap bandwidth for ordinary use of the service you purchased (for example, serving website traffic on shared hosting, or player traffic on a game server). It does not mean bandwidth is unlimited for every possible use of the underlying server — see the VPN allowance below, which is the one specific, disclosed exception to 'unlimited' on our VPS and dedicated server plans.
2. Prohibited Activities
The following activities are strictly prohibited on ABR Hosting's network:
- Speed Test Servers: Operating a public speed test server. These consume disproportionate bandwidth and negatively impact other customers sharing the same network capacity.
- Cryptocurrency Mining: Cryptocurrency mining consumes disproportionate CPU resources and negatively impacts the performance of the server and the experience of other customers.
- Bulk Email Sending: Sending unsolicited bulk emails (spam), which can result in IP blacklisting that affects email deliverability for other customers on the same network.
- Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks: Initiating or participating in DDoS attacks against any target.
- Excessive Bot Activity: Running bots that make a disproportionately high volume of requests in a short period, such as aggressive web-scraping bots, in a way that measurably degrades service for other customers.
- Illegal Activities: Using the Services for any activity that is illegal under UK law or the law of the location where the affected server is hosted.
- TOR Exit Nodes and Open Proxies: Operating a TOR exit node or an open (unauthenticated) proxy, as these are commonly used as a conduit for abuse and can result in the hosting IP range being blacklisted.
3. VPN Hosting Allowance
Unlike the activities in Section 2, VPN hosting is permitted on our VPS and Dedicated Server plans, up to 20TB of VPN-related bandwidth per month. This is the specific, disclosed limit referred to in Section 1 above as an exception to plans marketed as 'unlimited bandwidth.' Where a VPN's usage exceeds 20TB/month, we will contact you first to discuss upgrading to a plan suited to that usage; we may throttle or suspend the specific service only if usage continues to significantly exceed the allowance after that contact.
4. Service Limits
ABR Hosting provides services based on the resources specified in the chosen service plan (for example, allocated vCPU, RAM, and storage). Customers are expected to use these resources within the limits of their plan. 'Excessive' usage for the purposes of this Policy means sustained resource consumption that measurably degrades the service of other customers on shared infrastructure (for example, sustained 100% CPU usage on a shared-hosting account that causes other accounts on the same node to slow down) — normal, even resource-intensive, use of the resources actually allocated to your own plan is not a violation. If a customer's usage consistently exceeds what their plan allocates, we will contact the customer first to discuss upgrading to a suitable plan before taking any restrictive action.
5. Fair Use Enforcement
We monitor our network to ensure compliance with this Policy. Where we determine a customer has breached this Policy, we will normally take the following steps in order, proportionate to the severity and repetition of the issue:
- Issue a warning to the customer by email, describing the specific issue and a reasonable opportunity to correct it.
- Throttle the affected service if the issue continues or recurs.
- Suspend the affected service if the issue is severe, illegal, actively harming other customers, or continues after a warning and throttling.
We may skip directly to suspension without prior warning only where the activity is illegal, poses an immediate security or stability risk to our network, or the account holder cannot be reasonably contacted in time to prevent harm to other customers.
6. Refund Window and Statutory Rights
Our Terms and Conditions describe both a statutory 14-day consumer cancellation right and a separate 7-day discretionary refund window offered to all new customers. We may decline the discretionary 7-day window specifically where we reasonably determine it is being used to abuse the offer — for example, a customer repeatedly opening new accounts to claim it more than once. This section does not affect, and is not intended to override, a consumer's statutory 14-day cancellation right, which is described in our Terms and Conditions.
7. Monitoring
We monitor network traffic and server-level resource usage (such as aggregate bandwidth, CPU, and RAM usage) to ensure compliance with this Policy. This monitoring looks at resource-usage patterns necessary to detect the issues described above; it is not used to inspect the content of Your Content (as defined in our Terms and Conditions) except where necessary to investigate a specific, reported abuse issue.
8. Queries
If you have any questions about this Policy or if you are unsure whether an activity is permitted under this Policy, please contact ABR Hosting's support team at support@abrhosting.com before engaging in the activity.
9. Policy Review
We may revise this Policy from time to time. We will give at least 30 days' notice by email of any change that introduces a new restriction or reduces an existing allowance (such as the VPN bandwidth allowance above) before it takes effect for existing customers.
10. Customer Responsibility
Customers are responsible for ensuring that their use of ABR Hosting's services, and the use of the services by any person they allow to use their account (including a minor using a parent or guardian's account, per our Terms and Conditions), complies with this Policy. Customers should take appropriate measures to prevent unauthorised use of their account and to ensure that any software running on their server complies with this Policy.