North American Network Operators Group
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Re: Service Contracts

  • From: Patrick W Gilmore
  • Date: Thu Dec 09 15:08:12 2004 
On Dec 9, 2004, at 2:23 PM, Sam (Walter) Gailey wrote:
Hopefully this is not too off-topic; I'm looking for guidance in penalty clauses in service contract agreements. I run a small WAN for a town. We have an internet T-1, an internal frame T-1, five point-to-point T-1's and a small smattering of PVC's and low-bandwidth frame lines. I know we're small change, but I've had lines down for as long as four days and gotten little more than an apology from our current provider. Our contract expires soon and I'd like the next one to have a few more teeth, as in "if you're down for X hours you owe the customer a credit of X dollars."

Is this common practice?� What are typical penalty clauses like? Any guidance would be welcome, off-list is fine, I will summarize if people are interested.
SLA credits are usually horrifically low if you accept the service provider's standard contract. Ask for something with more teeth and you might get it. I like 1 day of credit for every hour of downtime. (For four days of downtime, you'd get the month free - they usually cap it at 1 month credit per month.)

But I'm mean to my service providers. :)

--
TTFN,
patrick