WorldCom's UUNET Enhances Service Level Agreements For Internet Access

UUNET's SLAs are First to Include Availability, Latency, Notification and Installation Guarantees FAIRFAX, Va., August 4, 1998

--- UUNET Technologies, Inc., a global leader in Internet communications solutions and a subsidiary of WorldCom, Inc., today announced new industry-leading service level agreements (SLAs) for Frame Relay, dedicated 56 Kbps, T-1, T-3 and OC-3 Internet access services. The SLAs are available for U.S. customers and U.S. customers purchasing leased line access in its multinational service program. UUNET's guarantees offer an unprecedented level of coverage including network availability, U.S. and transatlantic latency guarantees, proactive outage notification and installation interval guarantees. "UUNET now offers the most comprehensive service level guarantees in the industry," said Alan Taffel, vice president of marketing at UUNET. "By offering unparalleled guarantees for Internet access services we have taken our quality commitment to customers a step further than any other company in the industry."

UUNET's new guarantees consist of four elements:

• 100 Percent Availability that covers the UUNET backbone as well as the UUNET-ordered customer access circuit;
• Average Monthly Latency of no more than 85ms Roundtrip within UUNET's backbone in the contiguous U.S. and of no more than 120ms between New York and UUNET's international gateway hub in London;
• Proactive Outage Notification that guarantees customer notification by UUNET operations within 15 minutes of an outage; and
• Installation by the quoted install date, which will be not more than 40 business days for Frame Relay, 56 Kbps and T-1 customers and 60 business days for T-3 customers in the U.S.

"We have built a tremendously high degree of reliability and performance into our network and our support processes," said Taffel. "Now we are indicating our willingness to stand behind those services to a degree unprecedented in the industry."

Customer Credits
UUNET's service level agreements are backed by aggressive customer compensation. UUNET gives customers a credit of one day's service fee for every hour or fraction thereof of downtime. If UUNET does not meet the latency guarantee for two consecutive months, ALL Frame Relay, dedicated 56 Kbps, T-1, T-3 and OC-3 customers are issued a credit of one day's service fee. If guaranteed installation intervals are not met, UUNET will give affected customers a credit for half of the installation service fee.

Availability
UUNET's new SLAs are available immediately for U.S. customers with term commitments of at least one year and will be available in September for U.S. customers purchasing leased line access in its multinational service program with term commitments of at least one year. The multinational service program includes customers that have two or more connections where UUNET has local operations. UUNET currently has local operations in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. The exact terms of the SLAs are available at http://www.uu.net/terms/sla/.

UUNET plans to announce SLAs of a similar nature for other international customers later this year.