UUNET INTRODUCES UNPRECEDENTED SLAs ON ITS INTERNET NETWORK FOR UK BUSINESSES
The Industry's first 100% service level agreements set quality standard in the UK
UUNET, a global leader in Internet communications solutions, has announced new Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for its Internet network in the UK. The SLAs offer business customers in the UK an unprecedented level of coverage for mission-critical applications such as email, as well as wider applications including e-commerce.
Available to all existing and new leased-line UK customers, UUNET's SLAs are the first to offer 100% network availability, specified latency (similar to speed) levels, proactive outage notification and installation time guarantees for leased line products. Failure to meet these guarantees will result in UUNET crediting affected customers' accounts.
These terms will commence from November 1 and will be available to all new customers and to all existing customers once registered.
"UUNET is offering what we believe are the most comprehensive service level guarantees in the industry," said Joe Clift, UK marketing director, UUNET. "These are unparalleled levels of Internet access services and drive our quality commitment to customers further than any other company in the industry."
"We have invested heavily to build reliability and performance into our network and our support processes. We know from our research and what our customers tell us that, as they move to increasingly mission critical applications on the Internet, they will demand this level of service."
UUNET's leased-line customers include small-to-medium sized companies through to large corporates. The SLAs have been introduced to assure these companies of UNNET WorldCom's commitment to: providing the quickest possible installation of Internet connections; ensuring that these connections are up and running 100 percent of the time; and that their data is transported successfully through the network in the fastest possible time.
The SLAs were introduced in the US in August 1998 and the UK is the first of the other UUNET operating companies to extend the service.
Under the new SLAs, UK customers are guaranteed:
- 100 Percent Availability that covers the UUNET backbone as well as the UUNET-ordered customer access circuit and Customer Premise Equipment (CPE).
- Average Monthly Latency of no more than 85 milliseconds (ms) roundtrip within UUNET's European backbone and of no more than 120ms between the US and the UK.
- Proactive Outage Notification that guarantees customer notification by UUNET operations within 15 minutes of an outage.
- Installation quoted date will not exceed 20 business days for 64Kbps; 40 business days for 128 Kbps to 2Mbps; and for 8Mbps and above scheduled installation dates will be provided in writing by a UUNET sales manager.
Should UUNET fail to meet these SLAs, a credit of one day's service fee will be awarded for every hour or fraction of an hour of downtime accumulated during a month; if the latency guarantee is not met for two consecutive months; and if customers are not notified within 15 minutes of an outage. A credit for half of the installation service fee will be given if guaranteed installation intervals are not met. The exact terms of the SLAs are available at http://www.uu.net/terms/sla/
