Effective Date: June 2009
BroadbandONE Backbone Network Service Level Agreement
1) Application of BroadbandONE Backbone SLA
This BroadbandONE Backbone Service Level Agreements (SLA) is governed by the customer service agreement. Maintenance of the local circuit (local loop) shall be the responsibility of the local carrier, however; BroadbandONE will provide the following SLA with certain rights and remedies regarding the performance of the BroadbandONE Backbone (as defined below) to customers with term commitments of one or more years. This SLA applies only to Customers receiving the following services from BroadbandONE:
(i) Point-to-Point services
(ii) Frame Relay (all access speeds),
(iii) OCx
(iv) Metro Ethernet, On-Net, or IBE
(v) Colocation or Virtualization services
Notwithstanding the foregoing, the BroadbandONE SLA does not apply to BroadbandONE customers for services such as, Web & Email hosting, xDSL, ISDN or Dial-up access services.
2) Definitions
For purposes of this SLA, the following terms have the meanings set forth below:
"BroadbandONE Backbone" means BroadbandONE owned and operated Internet Protocol (IP) routing infrastructure consisting solely of selected BroadbandONE points of presence (POP) at which BroadbandONE has installed measurement devices ("Selected POPs") (i) within the United States and the connections between them in the forty-eight continental United States (the "North American Network"), (ii) within Europe and the United States and the Trans-Atlantic connections between such Selected POPs (the "Trans-Atlantic Network") and (iii) within Asia and the United States and the Trans-Pacific connections between such Selected POPs (the "Trans-Pacific Network").
"Local Loop" is a leased circuit provided by a third party, which BroadbandONE uses to connect a customer to the nearest BroadbandONE POP. The local loop is provided by local Telco provider within the customer area. BroadbandONE will extend the Local Carriers local loop SLA’s. Local Carrier SLA’s may be furnished to customer upon request.
“On-Net” means facilities/buildings that are directly connected to the BroadbandONE Network and does not require BroadbandONE a third-party local loop.
“IBE” means facilities/buildings that are connected to the BroadbandONE Network that BroadbandONE a third-party local loop.
"Scheduled Maintenance" refers to any upgrades or modifications to the Host.net Backbone (or portion thereof) Scheduled maintenances may temporarily degrade the quality of service or include interruptions of service. Host.net will attempt to ensure that any interruption of service is kept to a minimum and performed between the hours of 12:00am & 5:00am (local time of the Host.net POP to which Customer is connected). Except in the case of an emergency, Host.net will attempt to provide the Customer with at least five (5) Days notice of any maintenance of service. Host.net may undertake Emergency Network Maintenance at any time deemed necessary.
"Network Outage" means an instance in which no traffic can pass in or out of the Selected POP through which Customer connects to the BroadbandONE Backbone for more than 15 consecutive minutes. Network Outage will not include Scheduled Maintenances, or any unavailability resulting from a) problems with Customer’s applications, equipment or facilities; (b) negligence of Customer; (c) unavailability caused by companies other than BroadbandONE, except BroadbandONE-ordered local circuits where the local carriers SLA will be extended; or (d) Acts of God.
"Latency" means the average time required for round-trip packet transfers between Selected Point-Of-Presence (POP) is on the selected portions of the BroadbandONE Backbone during a calendar month, as measured by BroadbandONE.
"Packet Loss" means the average percentage of IP packets transmitted between Selected POPs during a calendar month that are not successfully delivered, as measured by BroadbandONE.
"Base Fee" consists solely of the base monthly fee paid by Customer for the affected BroadbandONE service and excludes all other fees which might be charged to Customer, including, by way of example and not limitation, set-up fees, fees for local loop, space rental fees, charges for additional services such as managed services, incremental bandwidth usage, electricity, extra IP addresses, RAM, or hard drives beyond that which is available without additional charge under BroadbandONE's standard rates, hourly support charges, and other types of optional additional services.
3) Summary of BroadbandONE Backbone SLAs
As described in more detail below, these BroadbandONE Backbone SLAs provide commitments based upon goals in three key areas:
(i) The BroadbandONE Backbone available to Customer free of Network Outages 99.999% of the time.
(ii) Latency of the BroadbandONE Backbone of (i) 75 milliseconds or less for North America, (ii) 120 milliseconds or less for Trans-Atlantic and (iii) 170 milliseconds or less for Trans-Pacific.
(iii) Packet Loss of the BroadbandONE Backbone of 0.6% or less.
4) BroadbandONE Backbone Availability
BroadbandONE's goal is to make the BroadbandONE Backbone available to Customers free of Network Outages 99.999% of the time.
Subject to Sections 6 and 7 below, upon Customer's request, BroadbandONE will issue a credit to Customer for Network Outages in an amount equal to one day's worth of the Base Fee paid by Customer, multiplied by each hour of the cumulative duration of such Network Outages during a particular month.
5) BroadbandONE Backbone Latency
BroadbandONE's goal is to keep Latency on the BroadbandONE Backbone to (i) 75 milliseconds or less for North America, (ii) 120 milliseconds or less for Trans-Atlantic Network and (iii) 170 milliseconds or less for Trans-Pacific.
Subject to Sections 6 and 7 below, if Latency on the North American Network, the Trans-Atlantic Network or the Trans-Pacific Network, as applicable, for a calendar month exceeds the time frame set forth above for the applicable portion of the BroadbandONE Backbone, BroadbandONE will issue a credit to Customer equal to one day's worth of the Base Fee paid by Customer for such month.
The terms of this BroadbandONE Backbone SLA related to Latency will take effect the first full calendar month after Customer's first use of the BroadbandONE Backbone.
BroadbandONE's goal is to keep Packet Loss on the BroadbandONE Backbone to 0.6% or less. If Packet Loss on the BroadbandONE Backbone exceeds 0.6% during a calendar month, BroadbandONE will issue a credit to Customer equal to one day's worth of the Base Fee paid by Customer for such month.
The terms of this BroadbandONE Backbone SLA relating to Packet Loss will take effect the first full calendar month after Customer's first use of the BroadbandONE Backbone.
6) Measurement
BroadbandONE will periodically (on average every 15 minutes) measure the BroadbandONE Backbone at selected POPs using software and hardware components capable of measuring traffic and responses at such POPs. Customer acknowledges that not every POP may be covered by such measurements, that such measurements may not measure the exact path traversed by Customer's packets, and that such measurements constitute measurements across the BroadbandONE Backbone but not other networks to which Customer may connect. BroadbandONE reserves the right to periodically change the measurement points and methodologies it uses without notice to Customer.
7) Exceptions
Customer shall not receive any credits under the SLA in connection with any failure or deficiency of the BroadbandONE Backbone caused by or associated with:
Circumstances beyond BroadbandONE's reasonable control, including, without limitation, acts of any governmental body, war, insurrection, sabotage, embargo, fire, flood, strike or other labor disturbance, interruption of or delay in transportation, unavailability of or interruption or delay in telecommunications or third party services, failure of third party software or inability to obtain raw materials, supplies, or power used in or equipment needed for provision of the BroadbandONE Backbone SLAs; failure of access circuits to the BroadbandONE Backbone, unless such failure is caused solely by BroadbandONE; scheduled maintenance and emergency maintenance and upgrades; DNS issues outside the direct control of BroadbandONE; false SLA breaches reported as a result of outages or errors of any BroadbandONE measurement system; or Customer's acts or omissions (or act or omissions of others engaged or authorized by Customer), including without limitation, any negligence, willful misconduct, or use of the BroadbandONE Backbone or BroadbandONE services in breach of BroadbandONE's Terms and Conditions of Service or BroadbandONE's Acceptable Use Policy.
8) Credit Request and Payment Procedures
Credit will be granted upon customer request only. Credit requests must be provided to BroadbandONE in writing. Verbal requests will not be honored. Each request in connection with a Network Outage must be received by BroadbandONE within seven days of the Network Outage and must be confirmed by BroadbandONE's measurements of the BroadbandONE Backbone. BroadbandONE must receive each request in connection with Latency or Packet Loss in a calendar month within seven days after the end of such month.
Each valid credit will be applied to Customer’s invoice within two billing cycles after BroadbandONE's receipt of Customer's request. Credits are exclusive of any applicable taxes charged to Customer or collected by BroadbandONE.
Notwithstanding anything in this BroadbandONE Backbone SLA to the contrary, the total amount credited to a Customer in connection with Network Outages, Latency and Packet Loss in any calendar month will not exceed the Base Fee paid by Customer for such month.