Dear Valued Inter Mountain Cable Subscriber:

Over the last few years, we have implemented our decision to greatly improve the quality of our cable service and Internet access service. Our aim was, and remains, to operate a state-of-the-art system that provides high quality services that are unusual for a rural area such as our area of operations. To implement this decision, we invested millions of dollars to convert an aged analog/digital system into an all-digital system based upon a dense fiber optic backbone.

In pricing our Internet access services, we seek to provide attractive pricing options to households within our service area.  Rather than charge solely by the amount of usage (a metered plan), we have elected to offer monthly flat rate pricing, which we have found to be a more attractive plan for household subscribers who want to know what they will pay for services.

We have elected to couple that pricing with data allowances to maintain a lower price for each speed option than we could offer absent data allowances. Absent the data allowances, very high volume users create costs that we would have to shift to lower volume users by increasing the monthly charges that the lower volume users have to pay. We anticipate that only a very small percentage of subscribers will be impacted by data allowances because most of our subscribers use a very reasonable amount of data under their broadband service plans.

We believe that this pricing plan is fairer to our users generally. It comports with industry practice and it complies with the FCC’s net neutrality rules (which do not prohibit data allowances).

As part of the new data usage plan, we have created a data management portal that will allow each subscriber to keep tabs on his or her own data usage. With these changes, the subscriber will be better able to know the subscriber’s usage patterns and select the service plan that best serves those patterns.

In implementing this new policy, we have strived to provide ample advanced notice both through a written notice mailed to existing subscribers on July 1, 2015, and by providing notice of this change in policy on the website.

While most of our subscribers receive service on a month-to-month basis, a minority of our subscribers are under contracts that commit them to take services for a duration exceeding a single month.  To accommodate the differences between the service durations of our various subscribers, we intend to apply the data usage plan as follows: 

• New subscribers are subject to the data usage plan immediately.
• Existing subscribers under a contract expiring before September 1, 2015 who elect to continue service will be subject to the data usage plan for the service taken or continued after that date.
• Existing subscribers under a contract expiring after August 31, 2015 will not be subject to the data usage plan until after the expiration of the contract. Those subscribers who elect to continue service after contract expiration will be subject to the data usage plan for the service taken or continued after the contract expiration date.
• Existing subscribers taking service on a month-to-month basis will be subject to the data usage plan starting on September 1, 2015.

We hope that this response provides you with a better understanding of the reasons for our data usage plan, and a better understanding of how we intend to implement the plan.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions or additional concerns.