The Tennessee Education Cooperative Network (TECnet) mission is stated as: "It is the primary purpose of TECnet to provide data connectivity to non-profit institutions in the Tennessee region which have as their primary purpose academic and research activities and to state and local governments."

The TECnet is for the use of persons legitimately associated with current institutional members and other institutions in the Tennessee region that choose to join the TECnet and agree to abide by the appropriate usage conventions and any terms and conditions of membership and affiliation of the TECnet, as they may be amended from time to time.

The TECnet will support the primary functions of the academic and research institutions, that is, instruction, research, public service, and the accompanying administrative support functions by facilitating the exchange of information consistent with the purposes of the cooperating institutions. Functions of state and local government members may likewise be facilitated by the use of the TECnet.

The TECnet is open to use, at the discretion of the individual educational institutions, by faculty, students, and staff affiliated with that institution and by state and local government members. Users of the TECnet are expected to be responsible in their use and are subject to approval of their institution. Each institution is responsible to see that the acceptable use policy is widely distributed, that the TECnet users are aware of the policy, and that these policies are followed. Each institution is responsible for exercising any control they deem necessary to maintain usage within the confines of the acceptable use policy.

The TECnet is not a secure network. Information that is transmitted over the network is not encrypted or made private between the sender and the addressee. Anyone who can intercept the transmission has access to the information as if it were addressed to the interceptor. Sensitive or confidential information should not be sent over TECnet.

Guidelines for use of the network are as follows. Other acceptable and unacceptable usage can be derived from these examples.

• Individual usage of the TECnet must be consistent with the goals, purposes, and mission of the TECnet.
• The TECnet must not be used for any activity that does not support the mission and purposes of the individual institution. If a particular usage is not in the best interest of the institution or if it does not support the mission and purposes, then it must not be done.
• The TECnet must not be used for commercial purposes.
• Deliberate disruption of anyone's work or system is prohibited.
• The TECnet must not be used for any unlawful purposes. It is NOT acceptable to use TECnet to transmit threatening, obscene, or harassing materials. Attempts to penetrate a remote site without proper authorization is strictly forbidden and also violates the Tennessee Code Annotated which states suitable punishment for violators.
• If institutions are authorized to use gateways to other networks, all rules and conventions of the other networks must be followed. The institution having access to other networks should obtain and abide by that other network's acceptable use policy.
• Institutions are forbidden to use the TECnet to gain access to any other network which requires membership if the accessing institution does not have proper membership, rights, and privileges in the other network.
• Disruption of any activity on a remote node is forbidden. Users must not do anything concerning remote nodes that will cause the loss or corruption of data, the abnormal use of computing resources, or the introduction of computer viruses by any means.
• Authority for the TECnet acceptable use policies lies with the Computer Center Directors of the participating institutions as advised by the TECnet Management Advisory Committee and the TECnet Technical Advisory Committee. Interpretation of questionable acceptable usage will be determined by the TECnet Management Advisory Committee, after necessary consultation with the TECnet Technical Advisory Committee, and recommendations will be made to the Computer Center Directors of the participating institutions. Until an issue is resolved, questionable use should be considered "not acceptable."