What ISPA's code asks an ISP to publish and disclose
What a South African ISP that belongs to ISPA must show on its website and give customers before a service agreement starts, and how to send it.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Telecoms businesses in South Africa
Joining the Internet Service Providers' Association is a sensible step for a growing South African ISP. Membership signals to customers and upstream partners that you play by an industry code, and it brings you into the association's take-down and complaints procedures. It also brings obligations, and several of them bite before a customer has signed anything: what your website must show, what customers must be able to read before the agreement starts, and how you describe your prices and service levels.
This article works through the pre-contract parts of ISPA's Code of Conduct, version 3.1, effective from 5 June 2023, and how an ISP can build them into the way it signs up customers. The full code is on ISPA's site, and the Code of Conduct for ISPA members is the text to check against, since this article summarises only part of it.
What your website has to show
ISPA's code requires members to show on their websites their registered name, e-mail address, telephone number and physical address, together with a reference to their ISPA membership and a link to ISPA's code, complaints procedure and take-down procedure.
That sounds basic, but plenty of small ISPs trade under a brand name with only a contact form and a WhatsApp number on the site. Check yours against the list:
- Registered name: the company's legal name, not just the trading brand.
- E-mail address and telephone number that a customer can actually use.
- Physical address, not a post box.
- A reference to ISPA membership.
- Links to ISPA's code, complaints procedure and take-down procedure.
A footer that carries all of these on every page is the simplest way to meet it.
Acceptable use, before the customer signs
ISPA's code requires members to have acceptable or fair use policies, available to customers before any service agreement starts. Those policies commit customers not to create or spread illegal content, to use the service lawfully (copyright included), and not to send spam.
The phrase to notice is "before any service agreement starts". An acceptable use policy that a customer first sees in the welcome e-mail after installation does not meet it. Link the policy from the sign-up page and the quote, and refer to it by name in the service agreement so the customer accepts it as part of the contract.
Pricing, service levels and terms up front
ISPA's code requires members to convey pricing and other material information clearly and accurately, to offer only service levels reasonably within their technical and practical abilities, and to make terms and conditions available before any contract starts.
Each of those has a practical meaning for an ISP:
| Code requirement | What it looks like in practice |
|---|---|
| Pricing conveyed clearly and accurately | Monthly fee, installation, equipment and any once-off charges shown together, with VAT treatment stated |
| Material information | Contract term, notice period, fair use limits and what happens when they are reached |
| Realistic service levels | Speeds and uptime you can actually deliver on that network, not the upstream provider's best case |
| Terms available before the contract | A link to the full terms on the quote and the sign-up page, not just on request |
The service-level point is the one most often missed. Promising a response time your support desk cannot meet, or a speed the last-mile network rarely reaches, is exactly what the code steers members away from.
On pricing, make sure your documents match what you advertise. In Achekam, a business enters its VAT registration number in Settings under Firm Profile, and documents made by the server print it and are titled Tax Invoice only when a VAT number is set, so the VAT details customers see on your documents match what your pricing says.
Minors and paid services
ISPA's code says members must take reasonable steps not to offer paid services to minors without written permission from a parent or guardian. Online sign-ups make this easy to overlook. Reasonable steps might include asking for the account holder's date of birth, requiring an ID number for contract services, and having a parent or guardian sign where the user is a minor, such as a student residence connection taken out by a learner.
Signing the agreement on your letterhead
Once the customer has seen the acceptable use policy, the pricing and the terms, the service agreement itself needs signing. In Achekam, any document can be sent for electronic signature with signature and initials fields placed on it, signers in order or all at once, an expiry and reminders, and the signed PDF and a completion certificate are filed back into Documents. A document can be composed from text blocks with merge fields, so the customer's name, package and price fill in from one template.
The logo, brand colour and company details set under Settings appear on documents composed for signature, so the agreement goes out on the ISP's own letterhead. For a minor's connection, add the parent or guardian as a second signer, in order, so the agreement is not complete until they have signed.
Keep the signed agreement with the customer's records. If a customer later says they never received the terms or an invoice, the signed PDF and the completion certificate are your answer; proving a subscriber received an invoice covers the invoice side of that question.
The annual statement to ISPA
ISPA's code requires members to submit an annual statement confirming compliance and to co-operate with ISPA's annual compliance audits and spot checks. Treat the pre-contract items above as the evidence for that statement: a screenshot of the website footer, the current acceptable use policy, a sample quote and a signed agreement, filed together each year.
The code's other obligations, especially take-down notices and spam complaints, need their own records; handling take-down notices and spam complaints covers those.
Your next step
Open your own website and sign-up journey as a new customer would. Note where the contact details, ISPA references, acceptable use policy, pricing and terms first appear. Anything that shows up only after the customer has signed is the first thing to move.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
