MCI has announced new service-level agreements for
internet service performance aimed at giving business customers
added confidence in using internet protocol networks.
The new service levels increase performance thresholds and
provide new guarantees for IP traffic travelling between global
business centres, said MCI's Ralph Montfort, director of Internet
Access Services.
Specifically, guarantees of latency (defined by MCI as the speed
at which traffic traverses its global backbone) are reduced
throughout 11 different regions, dropping from 55 milliseconds to
45 milliseconds in North America and from 55 milliseconds to 30
milliseconds in Europe.
Internet service is also now guaranteed to be 100% available if
the service is ordered and provisioned by MCI.
Steven Harris an analyst at IDC said that availability guarantee
is important, especially since it includes the local loop - the
last stretch of cable into an office - and is backed by a customer
credit that is offered proactively. That means a customer does not
have to complain to get the credit.
"A proactive credit is very unusual," he said. "Carriers tend
not to give proactive credits to save money."
MCI said it is offering one day of credit for each hour of
outage.
In general, SLAs are wordy contracts full of phrases that are
subject to misinterpretation, Harris said, and large business
customers must watch their SLAs carefully because they sometimes
spend millions of dollars annually on internet services.
"SLAs are just an awful area that carriers are trying to
improve," Harris added. "Sometimes it comes down to what a single
word means and in the nitty-gritty they are mostly pretty
pathetic."
MCI deserves credit for trying to improve its SLAs, which could
help the carrier as it tries to improve its market position. MCI
lost about 28% in business IP revenue in 2003 as it emerged from
bankruptcy protection, he said.
Matt Hamblen writes for Computerworld