| Just what is a SLA (Service Level Agreement) for | | | | provision a secondary carrier. |
| dedicated bandwidth contracts? | | | | Bottom line. SLA's don't mean anything. Track record |
| Easy answer... Penalty clause. What the provider | | | | means everything. |
| promises if they "mess up". | | | | Get 3 large carrier customers. Speak to their CIO. Ask |
| However, in my honest opinion SLA's are 100% over | | | | the carrier if they publish track record stats. Ask the |
| rated and are usually meaningless. What if your ISP | | | | carrier what redundancy or H/A is built in; then ask to |
| absolutely guaranteed you 100% availability and | | | | see it in person. Regardless of what a carrier |
| uptime? What if they guaranteed you 1hr mean time to | | | | guarantees, the penalties for missing their guarantee |
| repair? Then they miss those... | | | | are not sufficient for them to matter much. If these are |
| Check your penalty. | | | | business critical get a secondary carrier for backup. |
| These are typical... | | | | To really protect yourself insist on a SLA which |
| 1) they will reimburse you for time lost. | | | | creates enough pain for the provider to force them to |
| Ok assume $3000/month (large cap circuit) and down | | | | take their promises seriously.... And sweat bullets at |
| 3 days = 10% = $300 penalty. I think they would pay | | | | their expense not yours if they don't live up to those |
| that. | | | | promises. |
| 2) they will let you out of the agreement if not | | | | For help negotiating to get the best SLA for YOU |
| resolved within 30 days. | | | | when shopping for dedicated bandwidth (e.g. T1, DS3, |
| Great... you are out of business up to 30 days? | | | | Ethernet)... I suggest using the free services available |
| Doesn't help you much does it? Then you need to | | | | through DS3 Bandwidth Solutions. |