Terms & Conditions of Use
The API Portal (defined below) and the APIs (defined below), owned and operated by NTUC Income Insurance Cooperative Limited ("Income"), are provided to you under the following terms and conditions of use ("Terms of Use").
By accessing this website and/or the related pages, registering for a developer account, using the related developer content and/or using the related online services, you agree to be bound by the following terms and conditions. Please read them carefully.
If you do not accept any of these terms or conditions, you must immediately discontinue your access of this website, all related pages, your developer account, developer content and/or use of the related online services.
If you are below 18 years old: you must obtain consent from your parent(s) or legal guardian(s), their acceptance of these Terms of Use and their agreement to take responsibility for: (i) your actions; (ii) any charges associated with your use of any of the services, software or content provided; and (iii) your acceptance and compliance with these Terms of Use.
In order to gain access and use the APIs, you will need to access the API Portal, sign up to create a user account, add the details of your Application(s) (defined below) and thereafter, subscribe to the APIs in respect of each Application.
Part 1 - Definitions
1. Definitions
In these Terms of Use, unless the context otherwise requires, the following expressions shall have the following meanings:
1.1 “APIs” means the application program interfaces made available on the API Portal which you have subscribed to, including any services, functions and features made available through such application program interfaces by or on behalf of Income;
1.2 "Developer Portal" or “API Portal” means the online platform owned and operated by Income to make available application program interfaces developed by Income and which is accessible at such location as may be prescribed by Income from time to time, and includes any of the features, services and functions made available through such online platform;
1.3 “Application” means the software application, website or other applications of yours which involves the use of the APIs;
1.4 “Data” means information and/or any other material (including databases, text, graphics, photographs, animations, audio, music, video, links or other content) provided or made available through the APIs, as the case may be;
1.5 “Guidelines” means any relevant notices, instructions, guidelines and operating rules and policies which Income issues from time to time, which may be notified to you via the API Portal or otherwise;
1.6 “Open-Source Licence” means any licence that requires, as a condition of use, modification and/or distribution of a work subject to the open source license, that such work and/or other work combined and/or distributed with such work be: (a) disclosed or distributed in source code form; (b) licensed for the purpose of making derivative works; or (c) redistributable at no charge;
1.7 “Password” refers to the valid password that you use in conjunction with the Username to access the APIs and/or the password-protected and/or secure areas of the API Portal.
1.8 “Personal Data” refers to any data, whether true or not, about an individual who can be identified (a) from that data; or (b) from that data and other information to which Income has or is likely to have access, including data in Income’s records as may be updated from time to time. Examples of such Personal Data include the individual’s name, address, national registration identity card (“NRIC”) number or e-mail address;
1.9 “User Materials” means any information, text, graphics, photographs and/or other materials or content submitted by you for inclusion and/or posting through the API Portal;
1.10 “Username” refers to the unique login identification name or code which identifies you.
Part 2 - Terms governing your access and use of the API Portal
2. Conditions for the use of the API portal (developer portal)
2.1 You must comply with all Guidelines pertaining to the use of the API Portal which we issue from time to time.
2.2 You must also (i) abide by all applicable laws and regulations in your use of the API Portal; (ii) not impersonate any person or entity or to falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with any person or entity; (iii) not send, distribute or upload, in any way, data or materials that contain viruses, malicious code or harmful components that may impair or damage the operation of another’s computer or equipment; and (iv) not post, promote or transmit through the API Portal any unlawful, harassing, libellous, harmful, vulgar, obscene or otherwise objectionable material of any kind or nature.
3. User materials
3.1 Income neither endorses nor assumes any responsibility for the contents of your transmissions or communications through the API Portal and you are solely responsible therefor.
3.2 You warrant and represent that you have the right and authority to submit your User Materials for inclusion and/or posting through the API Portal and that your User Materials do not infringe the intellectual property rights or any other rights of any third party. If Income suffers any loss, damages, costs or expenses arising from your User Materials, including infringement of intellectual property rights or any other rights of any third party, you shall fully and effectively indemnify Income against such loss, damages, costs or expenses (including legal costs on a solicitor-client basis).
3.3 You hereby grant to Income a non-exclusive, world-wide royalty-free, irrevocable licence and right to host, transmit, store, distribute or use (which will include without limitation, the right to copy, analyse, modify, aggregate, reproduce and/or publish) the User Materials in connection with the provision of the API Portal and/or APIs to you and for the purposes you have instructed or requested.
4. No linking
You may not, without Income's prior written permission, insert a hyperlink to, or establish frames of, the API Portal (or any part thereof, including without limitation any webpages, images, video, audio, graphics, text, code, program and/or any other material on the API Portal) on any other website or webpage or “mirror” any material contained on the API Portal on any other server.
Part 3 - Terms governing your access and use of the APIs
5. Licence to use APIs
5.1 Income grants to you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sub-licensable right to access and use the APIs in the manner permitted by and subject always to these Terms of Use.
5.2 Income reserves all rights not granted here under.
5.3 For the avoidance of doubt, Income shall not at any time be obliged to provide any modifications to the APIs, including without limitation any updates and/or upgrades to the APIs or any new versions and/or releases of the APIs which result in new features.
5.4 The APIs that you have subscribed to under the ‘Bronze’ tier are, in general, licensed to you at no charge. There may be charges for the use of APIs under certain scenarios under the ‘Bronze’ tier or under other tiers and details of the applicable charges will be provided via the Guidelines.
6. Licence requirements and restrictions
6.1 You will:
6.1.1 unless otherwise permitted by Income in writing, use the APIs strictly for non-commercial purposes;
6.1.2 use the APIs strictly in accordance with any relevant Guidelines;
6.1.3 use the APIs strictly for purposes that are permitted by any applicable laws or regulations;
6.1.4 where the APIs contain software or code subject to Open-Source Licences, use the APIs in accordance with the terms of the applicable Open-Source Licences, each of which shall constitute a licence solely between you and the applicable licensor of the software in question;
6.1.5 permit the display of, conspicuously display and/or not obscure the display of, as the context permits, any trade names, trademarks, logos, domain names and/or other attributions to Income’s brand which are automatically generated via the use of the APIs. You agree that Income has the sole right and discretion to determine whether your adherence to the foregoing and/or such attributions are satisfactory;
6.1.6 take all necessary steps and/or precautions to ensure that your Applications (whether using the APIs or not) are not mistaken or misrepresented as being Income’s products or services. You agree that the Applications shall at all times be made available or provided as your applications or services;
6.1.7 notify and obtain consent from your end users (and we shall deem that such consent has been obtained by you) before their Personal Data and location data is collected, transmitted or otherwise used by any of your Applications which offer location-based services or functionality; and ensure that you either own all content used in your Application, or have obtained consent (and we shall deem that such consent has been obtained by you) from the relevant content owners to use their content in your Application.
6.2 You will not, save as otherwise permitted by Income via the Guidelines:
6.2.1 sell, resell, assign, sub-licence, distribute, transmit, publicly display, rent, lease, lend, export, offer on a “pay-per-use” basis or publish the APIs or any part thereof in any form by any means to any third party, for monetary benefit or any other consideration;
6.2.2 interfere with or disrupt the APIs or the servers or networks providing the APIs or any part thereof;
6.2.3 reverse engineer or extract, or attempt to reverse engineer or extract, the source code from any API;
6.2.4 use the APIs, the Data and/or the Applications in a manner which:
6.2.4 (i)contravene any applicable laws and regulations; or
6.2.4 (ii)promote or facilitate any form of material or activity which Income deems objectionable or would subject itself to reputational risk, including, without limitation, gambling, obscenity, pornography, prostitution, drugs, crime, cruelty, violence and any other materials or activities;
6.2.5 pre-fetch, cache, index or store any Data except that you may store limited amounts of Data solely for the purpose of improving the performance of your Applications due to network latency (and not for the purpose of preventing Income from accurately tracking usage), and only if such storage is temporary (and in no event more than 10 calendar days), is secure, does not manipulate or aggregate any part of the Data or the APIs and does not modify attribution to Income in any way; and
6.2.6 delete or alter any trade names, trademarks, logos, domain names and/or other attribution to Income’s brand, which are provided due to the use of the APIs.
6.3 Any breach of the aforesaid requirements or restrictions shall result in immediate and automatic termination of all rights and licence granted hereunder, and your user account. The use restrictions set out herein shall survive the termination of these Terms of Use.
Part 4 - General terms applicable to both the API Portal and the APIs
7. User account
7.1 Access to and use of the APIs and/or the password-protected or secure areas of the API Portal are restricted to authorised users only. You may not obtain or attempt to obtain unauthorised access to the APIs or such parts of the API Portal, or to any other protected information, through any means not intentionally made available by Income for your specific use.
7.2 A Username and Password may either be: (i) determined and issued to you by Income; or (ii) provided by you and accepted by Income in Income’s sole and absolute discretion in connection with the use and/or access of the APIs and/or API Portal. Income may at any time in its sole and absolute discretion forthwith invalidate, suspend or terminate the user account, Username and/or Password issued to you without giving any reason or prior notice and shall not be liable or responsible for any loss or damage suffered by or caused by you or arising out of or in connection with or by reason of such invalidation, suspension or termination. You hereby agree to change your Password from time to time and to keep the Username and Password confidential and shall be responsible for the security of your user account and liable for any disclosure or use (whether such use is authorised or not) of the Username and/or Password. You are to notify us immediately if you have knowledge that or have reason for suspecting that the confidentiality of the Username and/or Password has been compromised or if there has been any unauthorised use of the Username and/or Password.
7.3 Any use of or access to the APIs, the Data and/or the API Portal and any information, data, instructions or communications (“Communications”) referable to the user account, Username or Password issued to you (whether such access, use or Communication is authorised by you or not) shall be deemed to be (a) use or access of the APIs and/or the API Portal by you and/or (b) Communications transmitted and validly issued by you. You shall be bound by any access, use, and/or Communications referable to the user account, Username or Password issued to you, and you agree that Income shall be entitled (but not obliged) to act upon, rely on and/or hold you solely responsible and liable in respect thereof as if the same were carried out or transmitted by you.
8. Advertising
Income may attach banners, java applets and/or such other materials to the API Portal, or include advertising in the Data provided or made available to you through the APIs, for the purposes of advertising Income’s or any third party’s products and/or services. By using the APIs, you agree to display any such advertising provided or made available to you through the APIs in the form provided to you by Income.
9. Reservation of right
9.1 Income may from time to time without giving any reason or prior notice, upgrade, modify, alter, suspend, discontinue the provision of or remove, whether in whole or in part, the API Portal, the APIs and/or the Data and shall not be liable if any such upgrade, modification, suspension or alteration prevents you from accessing the API Portal and/or the APIs or any part or feature thereof.
9.2 Income reserves the right, but shall not be obliged to: (i) monitor, screen or otherwise control any activity or services; (ii) investigate any violation of the terms and conditions contained herein and take any action it deems appropriate; (iii) prevent or restrict your access to the API Portal, the APIs and/or the Data; and/or (iv) report any activity it suspects to be in violation of any applicable law, statute or regulation to the appropriate authorities and to co-operate with such authorities.
10. Other applicable terms/new services
10.1 In addition to these Terms of Use, the use of specific aspects of the APIs and/or the API Portal and/or more comprehensive or updated versions of the APIs and/or API Portal may be subject to additional terms and conditions (“Additional Terms”), which will apply in full force and effect.
10.2 Income reserves the right (but shall not be obliged) to introduce new products, applications, programmes, services, functions and/or features (collectively “New Services”) to the API Portal or the APIs. The term “API Portal” or “APIs” (as the case may be) shall include New Services which are provided through the API Portal or the APIs respectively at no charge or fee unless otherwise indicated.
10.3 All New Services shall be governed by these Terms of Use and may be subject to Additional Terms which you shall be required to agree to before access to and use of such New Services are provided. In the event of any inconsistency between these Terms of Use and the Additional Terms, the Additional Terms shall prevail in so far as the inconsistency relates to the service, product and/or programme in question unless otherwise provided.
11. Disclaimers
11.1 Income shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the APIs, the API Portal or the Data, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. You understand and agree that you will use the APIs, the API Portal and/or the Data at your own discretion and risk and that you will be solely responsible for any loss or damages that arise from your use of the APIs, the API Portal and/or the Data.
11.2 Income is under no obligation to monitor or review discussions, messages, blogs, chats, postings, transmissions, bulletin boards, and the like on or accessible through the API Portal, and assumes no responsibility or liability arising from the content of any such locations nor for any error, defamation, libel, slander, omission, falsehood, obscenity, pornography, profanity, inaccuracy or any other objectionable material contained in any applications or content within such locations.
11.3 Any hyperlink to any other website or webpage is not an endorsement or verification of such website or webpage and should only be accessed at your own risk.
11.4 Income does not and shall not be taken to endorse your Application, and you shall not do anything or permit anything to be done which implies or suggests that Income is in any way endorsing the use or commercialisation of your Application.
12. No warranty
12.1 The APIs, API Portal and the Data are provided “as is” and “as available”. NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, IMPLIED, EXPRESS OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTIES OF TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS, MERCHANTABILITY, SATISFACTORY QUALITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND FREEDOM FROM COMPUTER VIRUS OR OTHER MALICIOUS, DESTRUCTIVE OR CORRUPTING CODE, AGENT, PROGRAM OR MACROS, IS GIVEN IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE APIS, DATA, API STORE, OR ANY INFORMATION AND MATERIALS PROVIDED AT THE API STORE OR THROUGH THE APIS. Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, Income does not warrant: (i) the accuracy, timeliness, adequacy or completeness of the APIs, the API Portal or the Data; (ii) that your use of and/or access to API Portal, the Data and/or the APIs, or the operation of the API Portal, the Data and/or the APIs, will be uninterrupted, secure or free from errors or omissions or that any identified defect will be corrected; (iii) that the APIs, the API Portal and/or Data will meet your requirements or are free from any virus or other malicious, destructive or corrupting code, agent, program or macros; and (iv) that use of the API Portal, APIs and/or the Data by you will not infringe rights of third parties.
12.2 In addition, Income makes no warranty regarding any applications, products or services that may be or which are purchased or obtained or any transactions entered into through the API Portal.
12.3 You acknowledge and agree that Income does not warrant the security of any information transmitted by or to you using the API Portal or APIs and you hereby accept the risk that any information transmitted or received using the API Portal or APIs may be accessed by unauthorised third parties and/or disclosed by Income and by its officers, employees or agents to third parties purporting to be you or purporting to act under your authority.
12.4 You and your end users will not hold Income or any of its officers, employees or agents responsible or liable, in contract, tort (including negligence or breach of statutory duty), equity or otherwise, for any such access or disclosure or for any damages, losses, expenses or costs (whether direct or indirect, or whether foreseeable or not) suffered or incurred by you or your end users as a result of any such access or disclosure.
13. Data privacy and confidentiality
13.1 In the event that Income handles your (and your end users) Personal Data, Income’s privacy policy explains how Income treats your Personal Data when you access and/or use the API Portal or APIs. By accessing and using the API Portal or APIs, you agree that Income, its related cooperatives and corporations (collectively, the “Income Group”), and their respective business partners, agencies, agents and contractors (collectively, the “Income Representatives”) can collect, use and disclose any Personal Data you provide to Income for purposes reasonably required by Income Group and the Income Representatives to enable them to provide the API Portal or APIs to you (and your end users). Such purposes are set out in Income Privacy Policy here, as may be updated and/or amended by Income from time to time, or available on request and which you have read and understood. You also further agree that Income Group and the Income Representatives can contact you in relation to your access and use of the API Portal and APIs and for the purposes of exploring business opportunities.
13.2 In addition, you consent to Income’s systems being programmed to gather certain anonymous data to help Income understand how the API Portal, APIs and/or Data are being used and how we can improve them. This automatically gathered data includes your computer’s IP or “Internet Protocol” address, statistics about how you navigate through the API Portal, APIs and/or Data, and information provided through the use of “cookies”.
14. Limitation of liability
14.1 Income shall in no event nor for any reason whatsoever be liable, even if Income has been advised of the possibility of such damages, losses or expenses, for any damages, loss or expense, including direct, indirect, special, or consequential damage, or economic loss, arising from or in connection with (i) any access, use or the inability to access or use the API Portal, APIs or Data; (ii) any system, server or connection failure, error, omission, interruption, delay in transmission, computer virus or other malicious, destructive or corrupting code, agent program or macros; (iii) any use of or access to any other website or webpage linked to the API Portal or provided through the APIs; (iv) any services, products, information, data, software or other material made available, obtained or downloaded from the API Portal or APIs or from any other website or webpage linked to the API Portal and/or APIs or from any other party referred by the API Portal and/or APIs, or through the use of the API Portal and/or APIs, or (v) your use or misuse of the API Portal, the Data and/or the APIs. In no event shall Income be liable to you, your end users or any other party for: (a) amounts due from other users of the API Portal or APIs in connection with the purchase of any products/services; (b) losses, damages, expenses or costs arising in connection with the use of the API Portal, APIs, the Data, or a product or service from the API Portal, by you, your end users or other third party; and/or (c) sales, customs and/or import or export taxes.
15. Indemnities
15.1 You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Income and its related corporations, and any of their officers, directors, agents, employees and licensors, from and against any and all claims, actions, proceedings, suits, liabilities, damages, settlements, penalties, fines, costs or expenses (including legal fees) arising out of or relating to:
15.1.1 your use or your end users’ use of the API Portal, APIs or Data;
15.1.2 your Application;
15.1.3 your User Materials;
15.1.4 your breach of any Terms of Use herein.
15.2 You will cooperate fully in the defence of any allegation or third-party legal proceeding (including legal proceeding for infringement of intellectual property or other rights of third party). Income reserves the right to assume the exclusive control and defence of any indemnified matter under this Clause 15.
16. Intellectual property
16.1 All copyright and other intellectual property and proprietary rights in the API Portal, APIs and Data belong to Income or its licensors unless otherwise indicated. You may access the API Portal, APIs and Data provided that you also retain all copyright and other proprietary notices contained therein. You may not, however, copy, reproduce, distribute, modify, transmit, reuse, re-post, or use the Data without Income’s prior written permission. The trademarks, logos, and service marks (collectively the “Trademarks”) displayed on the API Portal and/or through the APIs are registered and unregistered Trademarks of Income or where applicable, other third party proprietors. No right or licence is given to any party accessing the API Portal or the APIs to reproduce or use any such Trademarks. In the event that any enhancements, derivatives, changes, modifications, alterations or adaptations of or to the APIs or Data in whatever form or medium (collectively “Derivative Works”), are made, created, developed, or acquired by you (whether or not authorised under these Terms of Use or whether or not permitted by Income), all rights, title and interest (including intellectual property rights) in all countries of the world, whether vested, contingent or future, in and to such Derivative Works shall belong exclusively to Income.
17. Transactions with third parties
17.1 Under no circumstances shall it be construed that, in the case of the services, products or programmes of any third party, Income is a party to any transaction between you and such third party or that Income endorses, sponsors, certifies, or is involved in the provision of such services, products, applications or programmes accessible at the API Portal or through the APIs and Income shall not be liable in any way for any products obtained and/or purchased from or services rendered by any such third party which shall be the sole responsibility of the relevant third party.
18. Termination
18.1 Income, in its sole discretion, may with immediate effect upon giving you notice in any of the manners prescribed in Clause 20 below, terminate your right to access and/or use the APIs and/or the API Portal and/or invalidate your user account and may bar access to the API Portal (or any part thereof) and/or the APIs (or any part thereof) for any reason whatsoever, including without limitation, a breach of any of the terms and conditions of these Terms of Use.
18.2 You may terminate these Terms of Use by giving seven (7) days’ notice in writing to Income.
18.3 Upon termination of these Terms of Use for any reason whatsoever, all rights and/or licences granted to you under these Terms of Use shall immediately cease and terminate and you shall forthwith cease the access and use of the API Portal and the APIs in any way whatsoever.
18.4 Termination of these Terms of Use for any reason:
(a) shall not affect your obligation to make full payment of any fees payable if such fee has not already been paid; and
(b) shall not bring to an end your obligations or Income’s rights under any provisions of these Terms of Use which are meant to survive the termination.
18.5 No refund
(a) In the event of any termination of these Terms of Use for any reason whatsoever, you shall not be entitled to any refund of any of your payments pursuant to these Terms of Use.
19. Amendments to terms of use
19.1 Income may unilaterally impose such further terms and conditions and make such amendments to these Terms of Use as Income may in its discretion deem fit from time to time (including terms or amendments allowing Income to charge or revise fees for the use of the APIs and/or Data). Income will notify you of such amendments by posting the amendments on-line at the API Portal or such other method of notification as may be designated by Income (such as via email or other forms of electronic communications), which you agree shall be sufficient notice for the purpose of this clause. If you do not agree to be bound by the amendments, you shall immediately cease all access and/or use of the API Portal, APIs and Data. You further agree that if you continue to use and/or access the API Portal, APIs and/or Data after being notified of such amendments to these Terms of Use, such use and/or access shall constitute an affirmative: (a) acknowledgement by you of these Terms of Use and its amendments; and (b) agreement by you to abide and be bound by these Terms of Use and its amendments.
20. Notices
20.1 Any notice or other communication in connection with these Terms of Use: (a) may be given electronically if sent to the email address or contact number then most recently notified by the recipient to the sender; (i) if given by us to you electronically, will be deemed to have been received upon delivery (and a delivery report received by us will be conclusive evidence of delivery even if the communication is not opened by you) and (ii) if given to us electronically, will be deemed to have been received upon being opened by us.
21. Force majeure
21.1 Income shall not be liable for any non-performance, error, interruption or delay in the performance of its obligations or in the API’s or the API Portal’s operation, or for any inaccuracy, unreliability or unsuitability of the APIs or API Portal if due, in whole or in part, directly or indirectly to an event or failure which is beyond its reasonable control (including acts of God, natural disasters, epidemics, acts of war or terrorism, acts of any government or authority, power failures, acts or defaults of any telecommunications network operator or carriers and the acts or a party for whom Income is not responsible for).
22. General
22.1 You may not assign your rights under these Terms of Use. We may assign our rights under these Terms of Use to any third party.
22.2 These Terms of Use will bind you and us and our respective successors in title and assigns. These Terms of Use will continue to bind you notwithstanding any change in our name or constitution or our merger, consolidation or amalgamation with or into any other entity (in which case these Terms of Use will bind you to our successor entity).
22.3 If any provision of these Terms of Use is held to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable (whether in whole or in part), such provision shall be struck and severed from these Terms of Use and the remaining provisions of these Terms of Use shall not be affected thereby.
22.4 No failure or delay to exercise our rights under these Terms of Use shall operate as a waiver thereof nor shall such failure or delay affect our right to enforce our rights under these Terms of Use.
22.5 If these Terms of Use is translated into a language other than English, the English text shall prevail. These Terms of Use and our relationship is governed by and construed in accordance with Singapore law. You submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Singapore.
22.6 You acknowledge and agree that Income's records and any records of the communications, transactions, instructions or operations made or performed, processed or effected through the APIs and/or the API Portal by you, your end users, or any person purporting to be you, acting on your behalf or purportedly acting on your behalf, with or without your consent, or any record of communications, transactions, instructions or operations relating to the operation of the APIs or the API Portal and any record of any communications, transactions, instructions or operations maintained by Income or by any relevant person authorised by Income relating to or connected with the APIs and/or API Portal shall be binding on you for all purposes whatsoever and shall be conclusive evidence of such communications, transactions, instructions or operations.
22.7 No person or entity who is not a party to these Terms of Use shall have any right under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act, Chapter 53B of Singapore or other similar laws to enforce any term of these Terms of Use, regardless of whether such person or entity has been identified by name, as a member of a class or as answering a particular description. For the avoidance of doubt, this shall not affect the rights of any permitted assignee or transferee of these Terms of Use.
22.8 Without prejudice to the generality of Clause 22.7 above, Income’s right to vary, amend or rescind these Terms of Use in accordance with these Terms of Use may be exercised without the consent of any person or entity who is not a party to these Terms of Use.
22.9 You agree and acknowledge that these Terms of Use and the services provided or made available thereunder do not include the provision of Internet access or other telecommunication services by Income. Any Internet access or telecommunications services (such as mobile data connectivity) required by you to access and use the API Portal and/or APIs shall be your sole responsibility and shall be separately obtained by you, at their own cost, from the appropriate telecommunications or internet access service provider.