Service Level Agreement
This Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a part of the Customer Subscriber Agreement (CSA or Agreement) between Customer and BR CLOUD SERVICES.
Capitalized terms used herein that are not defined in this SLA shall have the meaning attributed to them in the CSA.
SERVICE COMMITMENT
BRCLOUDSERVICES is committed to providing a reliable, high-quality network to support its high-speed network services (Service). As part of this commitment, BR CLOUD SERVICES is pleased to offer eligible Customers the following guarantees as concerns the Service:
– Installation Guarantee
– Network Availability and Notification Guarantee
– Network Latency Guarantee
– Packet Delivery Guarantee
Ethernet “Off-Net Basic” Services Customers are not eligible for any of the guarantees under the SLA. The Notification Guarantee, Latency Guarantee and Packet Delivery Guarantee apply to BR CLOUD SERVICES Dedicated Internet Access Customers only. If BR CLOUD SERVICES fails to meet any of these
guarantees, it will provide eligible Customers with a Service Credit, as set forth below in this Service Level Agreement.
GARANTEES
INSTALLATION GARANTEES
For each of the Services listed below, BR CLOUD SERVICES guarantees connectivity for Customers will be installed within the corresponding timeframe, as measured from the date an order has been validated and entered into BR CLOUD SERVICES’s provisioning system by its Account Coordination team.
– On-Net: 17 business days
– Colo: 17 business days
– Off-Net: 90 business days
– Waves: 90 business days
An order will not be validated until a signed Order Form and CSA and any other required documentation specified by BR CLOUD SERVICES, has been received, validated, approved and entered into BR CLOUD SERVICES’s provisioning system by its Account Coordination team. Additional required documentation may include a completed credit application and a completed questionnaire for IP Allocation as well as completed questionnaires for BGP, SMTP and DNS configurations when requested by the customer on the IP Allocation Questionnaire.
The Installation guarantee for BR CLOUD SERVICES colocation services does not apply to third-party data centers. For Ethernet services, the port with the longest install time governs the entire order, e.g., if one port is On-Net and another port is Off-Net, the longer install time corresponding to the Off-Net port
applies to both orders.
If BR CLOUD SERVICES fails to meet these commitments, Customer will receive, at Customer’s request, one (1) month Service Credit. Customer may obtain no more than one (1) month Service Credit for any given month. BR CLOUD SERVICES’s Installation Guarantee is subject to the following conditions:
– Customer or its representative must cooperate with BR CLOUD SERVICES in the installation process, which includes accurate completion of an Order Form containing detailed demarcation information and other onsite contact listings. Changes in an Order Form made by or on behalf of Customer or the occurrence of events outside the reasonable control of BR CLOUD SERVICES, such as Force Majeure (as defined in the CSA), may result in delays for which BR CLOUD SERVICES is not responsible hereunder.
– Customer or its representative must be physically present at the time of installation and must provide access to the designated building’s phone closet(s) on the date(s) agreed to by BR CLOUD SERVICES’s Installation Coordination Department. Such building access and escort must also be provided to other necessary personnel to perform the installation of the connection.
– This Installation Guarantee applies to the interval between the original order date and original Installation Guarantee date. If Customer requests a change to an order date during implementation of Service, the Installation Guarantee date shall, at BR CLOUD SERVICES’s sole discretion, begin again upon change acceptance.
– The Service Credit for failure to meet the Installation Guarantee is not available to Customers for whom installation charges have been waived or reduced.
NETWORK AVAILABILITY AND NOTIFICATION GUARANTEE
BR CLOUD SERVICES’s network is designed for 100% availability.
On-Net Service. If Customer experiences Network Unavailability for an On-Net Service for more than 15 consecutive minutes, Customer will receive, at Customer’s request, one (1) day Service Credit for each cumulative hour of Network Unavailability in any calendar month. Provided the BR CLOUD SERVICES Network experiences at least one (1) hour of Network Unavailability in any given calendar month, additional Network Unavailability of less than one (1) hour will result in a proportional Service Credit. (Example: 2 hours, 15 minutes of Network Unavailability will result in 2.25 days Service Credits.) Customer may obtain no more than one (1) month Service Credit for any given month.
Off-Net and Wave Services. If Customer experiences Network Unavailability for an Off-Net or Wave Service for more than 15 consecutive minutes, Customer will receive, at Customer’s request, one (1) hour Service Credit for each cumulative hour of Network Unavailability in such calendar month. Provided the BR CLOUD SERVICES Network experiences at least two (2) hours of Network Unavailability in any given calendar month, additional Network Unavailability of less than one (1) hour will result in a proportional Service Credit. (Example: 2 hours, 15 minutes of Network Unavailability will result in 2.25 hours Service Credits.) Customer may obtain no more than one (1) month Service Credit for any given month.
BR CLOUD SERVICES’s Outage Notification Guarantee is to proactively notify a Dedicated Internet Access Customer within 15 minutes after BR CLOUD SERVICES determines that Customer’s Service is unavailable. BR CLOUD SERVICES’s standard procedure is to ping the Customer’s router every minute. If Customer’s router does not respond after ten consecutive ping cycles, BR CLOUD SERVICES will deem the Service unavailable and will contact Customer’s designated point of contact by a method elected by BR CLOUD SERVICES (telephone, email, fax, or pager).
If BR CLOUD SERVICES fails to meet this Outage Notification Guarantee, Customer will receive, at Customer’s request, one (1) day Service Credit for the Service with respect to which this Guarantee has not been met. Customer may obtain no more than one day Service Credit per day, regardless of how often in that day BR CLOUD SERVICES failed to meet the Customer Reporting Guarantee. Customer may obtain no more than one (1) month Service Credit for any given month.
If a Dedicated Internet Access Customer elects to bundle several Services using the Link Aggregation (LAG) option, then such LAG-bundle shall be deemed to represent one single Service for the purpose of the Network Availability and Outage Notification Guarantee. Consequently, Customer shall be eligible to receive Service Credits under this Section 2B if and only if Customer experiences Network Unavailability for all of the Services bundled in the LAG-bundle. The unavailability of any subset of the Services bundled in the LAG-bundle shall not constitute Network Unavailability and Customer shall not be eligible for any Service Credits with respect to such unavailability. Customer may choose to administratively configure the LAG-bundle to drop if any individual Service within LAG-bundle becomes unavailable; however, this will not constitute Network Unavailability unless all Services included in the LAG-bundle experience Network Unavailability.
NETWORK LATENCY GUARANTEE
For Dedicated Internet Access customers only, the monthly average Network Latency for packets carried over the BR CLOUD SERVICES Network between
Backbone Hubs for the following regions is as specified below:
Intra-North America: 45 milliseconds or less
Intra-Europe: 35 milliseconds or less
New York to London (Transatlantic): 85 milliseconds or less
Los Angeles to Tokyo (Transpacific): 140 milliseconds or less
Network Latency (or Round trip time) is defined as the average time taken for an IP packet to make a round trip between Backbone Hubs within the
regions specified above on the BR CLOUD SERVICES Network. BR CLOUD SERVICES monitors aggregate latency within the BR CLOUD SERVICES Network by monitoring round-trip
times between a sample of Backbone Hubs on an ongoing basis.
After being notified by Customer of Network Latency in excess of the rates specified above, BR CLOUD SERVICES will use commercially reasonable efforts to determine the source of such excess Network Latency and to correct such problem to the extent that the source of the problem is on the BR CLOUD SERVICES Network.
If BR CLOUD SERVICES fails to remedy such Network Latency within two (2) hours of being notified of any excess Network Latency and average Network
Latency for the preceding 30 days has exceeded the rates specified above, Customer will receive, at Customer’s request, a Service Credit for the
period from the time of notification by the Customer until the average Network Latency for the preceding 30 days is less than the rates specified
above. Customer may obtain no more than one (1) month Service Credit for any given month.
PACKET DELIVERY GUARANTEE.
For Dedicated Internet Access customers only, the BR CLOUD SERVICES Network has an average monthly Packet Loss no greater than 0.1% (or successful
delivery of 99.9% of packets). Packet Loss is defined as the percentage of packets that are dropped between Backbone Hubs on the BR CLOUD SERVICS
Network. BR CLOUD SERVICES monitors this aggregate packet loss on an ongoing basis, and compiles the collected data into a monthly average packet loss
measurement for the BR CLOUD SERVICES Network.
After being notified by Customer of Packet Loss in excess of 0.1%, BR CLOUD SERVICES will use commercially reasonable efforts to determine the source of
such excess Packet Loss and to correct such problem to the extent that the source of the problem is on the COGENT Network.
If BR CLOUD SERVICES fails to remedy such excess Packet Loss within two (2) hours of being notified of any excess Packet Loss on the BR CLOUD SERVICES Network and average Packet Loss for the preceding 30 days exceeds 0.1%, Customer will receive, at Customer’s request, a Service Credit for the period from the time of notification by the Customer until the average Packet Loss for the preceding 30 days is less than 0.1%. Customer may obtain no more than one (1) month Service Credit for any given month.
ADDITIONAL DEFINITIONS
Dedicated Internet Access or Internet Transit refers to BR CLOUD SERVICES’s Layer 3 service that provides customers access to the public Internet.
Backbone Hub means a major network facility owned, operated, or controlled by BR CLOUD SERVICES which is directly connected to the BR CLOUD SERVICES fiber backbone network and which contains at least one core router. In larger metropolitan markets containing more than one such facility, one facility in that market will be designated as a Backbone Hub for the purpose of calculating the monthly average Network Latency and Packet Loss statistics.
Off-Net means buildings that are directly connected to the BR CLOUD SERVICES Network using other carriers’ facilities and services to provide the last mile portion of the link from the Service Location to the BR CLOUD SERVICES Network.
On-Net means buildings that are directly connected to the BR CLOUD SERVICES Network and, as such, do not require BR CLOUD SERVICES to lease a third-party local loop in order to provide connectivity.
BR CLOUD SERVICES Network means the telecommunications/data communications network and network components owned, operated or controlled by BR CLOUD SERVICES, including BR CLOUD SERVICES’s national fiber backbone, its metropolitan fiber networks, any equipment connected to such fiber, and the software, data and know-how used by BR CLOUD SERVICES in the provision of the Services. Where BR CLOUD SERVICES provides Service to a building through its own facilities, the BR CLOUD SERVICES Network includes those facilities. The BR CLOUD SERVICES Network does not include customer premises equipment, customer-ordered telephony circuits, and any networks or network equipment not operated and controlled by BR CLOUD SERVICES.
Monthly Recurring Charge means the fixed, recurring charge invoiced by BR CLOUD SERVICES to Customer on a monthly basis for the Service, exclusive of any variable charges based upon Customer usage. In case of bundled Services using the Link Aggregation (LAG) option, then the Monthly Recurring Charge of such LAG-bundle means the sum of the Monthly Recurring Charges of all Services involved in such LAG-bundle.
Network Unavailability means the number of minutes that the BR CLOUD SERVICES Network was not available to Customer, including the number of minutes that the BR CLOUD SERVICES Network was not available associated with any non-Scheduled Maintenance to the BR CLOUD SERVICES Network. Network Unavailability will not include Scheduled Maintenance, or any unavailability resulting from: (a) problems with or maintenance on Customer’s applications, equipment or facilities; (b) acts or omissions of Customer or an authorized user; (c) unavailability caused by companies other than COGENT, except COGENT-ordered third-party local loops; or (d) Force Majeure.
North America means the continental United States (excluding Hawaii), Canada and Mexico.
Scheduled Maintenance means any maintenance of the BR CLOUD SERVICES Network (or portion thereof) to which Customer’s router is connected that is performed during a standard maintenance window from 00:00am to 06:00am (local time of the BR CLOUD SERVICES Hub to which Customer’s circuit is connected). Customers will be notified via Email at least two (2) business days in advance of any scheduled maintenance that is likely to affect their service. In most cases, maintenance performed will not take the full configuration window, however, BR CLOUD SERVICES will inform Customer as to anticipated duration in the maintenance notification E-mail.
Service Credit means
– One (1) day Service Credit = 1/30th of Customer’s Monthly Recurring Charges.
– One (1) week Service Credit = 7/30ths of Customer’s Monthly Recurring Charges.
– One (1) month Service Credit = Full amount of Customer’s Monthly Recurring Charges.
If BR CLOUD SERVICES approves a claim for Service Credit for failure to comply with the Installation Guarantee, Service Credit shall mean the Monthly Recurring Charge for Customer’s first full month of the Service, not including installation charges or other start-up fees. Waves or Wave services refer to Cogent’s Optical Wavelength Layer 1 transport services.
SERVICE CREDIT CLAIM PROCESS.
In order to initiate a claim for Service Credit, Customer must contact BR CLOUD SERVICES’s customer service group within seven (7) business days after the end of the month for which credit is requested. The Service Credit request must provide:
(a) the Customer name and contact information;
(b) the date and beginning/end time of the claimed outage or failed metric; and
(c) a brief description of the characteristics of the claimed outage or failed metric.
Customer will be notified via e-mail upon resolution of the request. If rejected, the notification will specify the basis for rejection. If approved, BR CLOUD SERVICES will issue Service Credit to Customer’s account, appearing on the next invoice issued. Multiple Service Credits will not be given for the same period of time, i.e., failure to meet multiple criteria during a period of time generates only a single Service Credit. The total number of all Service Credits for all failures to meet Guarantees occurring in a given month may not exceed the total Monthly Recurring charge actually paid by Customer for Service during that month. Service Credits will be credited against a Customer’s monthly payment for Monthly Recurring Charges and may not be received in the form of a refund.
The Guarantees and Service Credits provided for in this SLA assume compliance by Customer with the terms and conditions of its CSA with BR CLOUD SERVICES, and the failure of Customer to comply with those terms and conditions may invalidate BR CLOUD SERVICES’s guarantees provided herein.
No credit is available for a Customer
(a) that is blocking BR CLOUD SERVICES from monitoring Customer’s premises router;
(b) that does not provide the necessary access to personnel and facilities at the Customer’s premises to enable BR CLOUD SERVICES to perform comprehensive troubleshooting; or
(c) whose account is not in good financial standing with BR CLOUD SERVICES.
BR CLOUD SERVICES is not liable for failure to fulfill its obligations hereunder if such failure is due to Customer’s use of bandwidth in excess of the maximum amount specified in Customer’s CSA, Customer’s tampering with any equipment, or acts beyond BR CLOUD SERVICES’s reasonable control, such as Force Majeure.