Tuesday Mar 09, 2010

Service Level Agreement This Service Level Agreement (“SLA”) outlines the minimum level of service and performance a Customer may expect for SERVICE(S) contracted for. SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT NIC Systems Group, Inc. (“NIC”) provides the following services (“SERVICES”): 1) Dedicated Point-to-Point Leased Line Internet Access 2) Managed Co-location including Internet Access 3) Web Hosting including Internet Access The following SLA represents NIC’s sole responsibility and the Customer’s sole remedy related to NIC’s SERVICES: NETWORK PERFORMANCE SLA: Network Availability Guarantee, Packet Loss Guarantee and Latency Guarantee. CUSTOMER SERVICE SLA: Service Installation Guarantee and Mean-Time-to-Repair Guarantee. Any SLA(s) or warranties other than the Network Performance or Customer Service SLA listed above and as described herein, whether expressed or implied, are hereby disclaimed, including warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. 1.0 DEFINITIONS “CUSTOMER” shall mean a NIC customer who has executed a binding agreement for NIC SERVICE(S). These SLAs do not apply to any other services purchased from NIC. For the purposes of these SLAs, the NIC Network (“NETWORK”) is the combination of NIC operated equipment, network elements including operational Core Routers provided by Focal Communications Corporation, 3rd party Internet bandwidth providers, and circuitry that together, provides Dedicated Internet Access products/services, Co-location products/services, and Web Hosting products/services. Customer understands the NETWORK and its facilities are operated in part by Focal Communications Corporation and other 3rd party Internet bandwidth providers not within the control of NIC. For those products/services and the purposes of these SLAs, the NETWORK begins with the Core Router(s), and ends at the Customer-facing, egress point/port on either NIC’s Core Switch or NIC’s Network Access Router located in the NETWORK facility. 1.1 NOT INCLUDED IN THE NIC NETWORK a. Customer Premises Equipment (CPE). b. Circuits, cabling, or any network segment connection between the NETWORK and a Customer's location whether or not they are owned or controlled by NIC. 1.2 NETWORK PERFORMANCE SLA a. NETWORK AVAILABILITY SERVICE LEVEL GUARANTEE NIC’s NETWORK will be available to the Customer 99% of the time per calendar month. NETWORK measurements will be based upon the cumulative number of minutes the NETWORK was not available for use ("Network Unavailability") within any calendar month, as solely determined by NIC. "Network Unavailability" shall mean a service outage due to a failure of the NETWORK resulting in the Customer being unable to connect to the NETWORK from Customer's location or Customer’s end users being unable to access any of Customer’s web-based applications that are being hosted on computer servers connected within the NETWORK. “Network Unavailability” shall not include the unavailability of NETWORK resulting from: i. Network maintenance ii. Emergency maintenance iii. Circuits or network elements provided by other telecommunications providers or other common carriers iv. An external Internet Service Provider or an Internet exchange point v. Acts or omissions of Customer or an authorized user vi. Customer equipment, facilities or applications vii. Local access provider outages or service interruptions viii. Acts of God, civil disorder, natural cataclysm, or any other occurrences or circumstances beyond the reasonable control of NIC. b. NETWORK AVAILABILITY GUARANTEE REMEDY If NIC determines, in its sole discretion, the NETWORK was unavailable during a period of time over and above 99% of the total available time in any given calendar month, Customer shall be entitled to receive a two (2) day credit of their NIC Monthly Service Fee for every sixty (60) minutes the Network Availability Guarantee was not met for the month in which the Network Unavailability occurred. Credits for Network Unavailability in minutes less than sixty (60) will be prorated in increments of fifteen (15) minutes, and in no case shall be less than fifteen (15) minutes. 1.3 PACKET LOSS a. PACKET LOSS GUARANTEE NIC guarantees that packet loss will not exceed an average of one percent (1%) on the NETWORK during any calendar month. Packet Loss is defined as the percentage of packets dropped between routers on the NETWORK. b. PACKET LOSS GUARANTEE REMEDY If NIC determines, in its sole discretion, that Packet Loss on the NETWORK exceeds one percent (1%) during a period of time over and above 99% of the total available time in any given calendar month, Customer shall be entitled to receive a two (2) day credit of their NIC Monthly Service Fee for every sixty (60) minutes the Network Availability Guarantee was not met for the month in which the Network Unavailability occurred. Credits for Network Unavailability in minutes less than sixty (60) will be prorated in increments of fifteen (15) minutes, and in no case less than fifteen (15) minutes. 1.4 LATENCY a. LATENCY GUARANTEE NIC guarantees an average monthly NETWORK latency of ten (10) milliseconds or less on the NETWORK. “Round trip time” or “network latency” is defined as the average time it takes an IP packet to enter and exit the NETWORK. b. LATENCY GUARANTEE REMEDY If NIC determines, in its sole discretion, the average NETWORK latency on the NETWORK exceeded ten (10) milliseconds during a period of time over and above 99% of the total available time in any given calendar month, Customer shall be entitled to receive a two (2) day credit of their NIC Monthly Service Fee for every sixty (60) minutes the Network Availability Guarantee was not met for the month in which the Network Unavailability occurred. Credits for Network Unavailability in minutes less than sixty (60) will be prorated in increments of fifteen (15) minutes, and in no case less than fifteen (15) minutes. 1.5 CUSTOMER SERVICE SLA a. SERVICE INSTALLATION GUARANTEE This Guarantee applies only to Customers with a contract for NIC’s Co-location product at a subscription rate of 100 Mbps or less, or under its Dedicated Internet Access product for either a T1 interface service at subscription rates of up to 1.544 Mbps, or a DS3 interface service at subscription rates of up to 45 Mbps. In this case, NIC guarantees that such Customer’s Internet Access Service will be installed within thirty-eight (38) business days after an order has been accepted and entered into NIC’s provisioning system by its Customer Support Department. An order is not considered to be “accepted” until all required documents/deposits have been submitted to and approved by NIC. b. CONDITIONS OF SERVICE INSTALLATION GUARANTEE For purposes of this Service Installation Guarantee, the term "Customer" shall only mean any customer with a contract with NIC for Internet Access under its Dedicated Internet Access product for a subscription rate of 100 Mbps or less. The Customer shall cooperate with NIC in the installation process, including accurate completion of an order form containing detailed demarcation information and other onsite contact listings. Any changes to an order made by or on behalf of the Customer, or any occurrence of events beyond NIC’s control, such as acts of third party telecommunications providers, may result in delays for which NIC is not responsible hereunder. The 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 NIC’s Customer Support Department. The same physical escort and building access must also be provided to the local telecommunications provider to perform its tasks necessary for installation of the circuit. Only circuits ordered to existing NIC POPs are covered hereunder. Special circuits, including those ordered for remote areas, or those that employ a technology which is other than that offered as a standard under the normal NIC Dedicated Internet Access product/service contract (e.g. ATM, SMDS, wireless, etc), are not covered. The Customer shall be liable for the local-loop charges with respect to such orders commencing with the actual installation date despite the grant of Service Credit on this Installation Guarantee by NIC. c. SERVICE INSTALLATION GUARANTEE REMEDY In the event service installation does not occur within thirty-eight (38) business days after an order has been accepted and entered into NIC’s provisioning system by its Customer Support Department, Customer is eligible to receive a one-time, three (3) day credit of their NIC Dedicated Internet Access Service Monthly Fee. 1.6 MEAN-TIME-TO-REPAIR a. MEAN-TIME-TO-REPAIR (MTTR) GUARANTEE NIC guarantees a four (4) hour Mean-Time-To-Repair per service outage to restore Customer’s Internet Access during periods of “Network Unavailability”. “Network Unavailability” is defined as indicated above in NIC’s Network Availability Guarantee. NIC determines and assigns, in its sole discretion, each Trouble Ticket a severity level based upon the impact of the service disruption to the Customer’s service. NIC will assign Trouble Tickets a Severity Level 1 status whenever a complete outage occurs on a Customer’s service due to NIC’s “Network Unavailability.” "Mean-Time-To-Repair (MTTR)" shall mean the time it takes NIC to restore Customer’s service. This is an average of the sum of minutes during which a Customer’s Severity 1 Trouble Ticket(s) were open in a billing month or reporting period. The outage period is calculated from the time NIC opened a Severity 1 Trouble Ticket for the Customer until the time service is restored and the Customer is satisfied that the trouble has been resolved (closing of the Severity 1 trouble ticket). The Customer’s satisfaction that the Severity 1 Trouble has been resolved shall not be unreasonably withheld. The four (4) hour MTTR objective only applies when NIC has opened a Severity 1 Trouble Ticket for the Customer and for which the Customer subsequently allows NIC access to the customer premises and/or releases the circuit for testing, and otherwise cooperates with NIC. The MTTR will be calculated by taking the sum of minutes between opening and closing of each Severity 1 trouble ticket during the billing month divided by the total number of Severity 1 trouble tickets during the billing month. MTTR measurements will exclude the following: i. Trouble Tickets associated with new installations before new service is accepted by the customer. ii. Trouble Tickets that are not associated with NIC provided service. iii. Trouble Tickets opened by customer for circuit monitoring purposes only. iv. Trouble Tickets associated with any act or omission on the part of the Customer or any third party, including but not limited to any local access provider. v. Trouble Tickets opened on a Dedicated Internet Access Service’s local loop. vi. Force majeure events beyond the reasonable control of NIC (e.g. acts of God, government regulation, national emergency, etc.). vii. “Hold Time” during a “Pending Close” status, provided the Trouble Ticket is subsequently closed without further action. A “Pending Close” situation exists where the Customer is not immediately available for verification and concurrence on Trouble Ticket closure. In such a case, the NIC Data NOC logs a pending close on the Trouble Ticket until the Customer can either be contacted or no further problem exists. If there are no further problems, the NIC Data NOC closes the ticket and notifies the Customer that the Trouble Ticket has been closed. viii. Trouble Tickets associated with Customer Premises Equipment unless otherwise noted under a separate addendum. b. MEAN-TIME-TO-REPAIR (MTTR) GUARANTEE REMEDY If the Monthly MTTR Average exceeds four (4) hours during a calendar month, Customer shall receive a one-time, three (3) day credit of their NIC Dedicated Internet Access Service Monthly Fee. 2.0 SERVICE CLAIM PROCESS To initiate a claim for Service Credit with respect to the SLAs described herein, Customer shall submit a Service Credit Request Form, with complete details, to NIC’s Customer Support Department within the time limits set forth below: FOR ALL NETWORK PERFORMANCE SLA’S AND THE MTTR GUARANTEE: Customer shall submit the Service Credit Request Form to NIC’s Customer Support Department within seven (7) business days after the end of the month in which the event occurred that gives rise to the claim for Service Credit. FOR THE SERVICE INSTALLATION GUARANTEE: Customer shall submit a Service Credit Request Form to NIC’s Customer Support Department within seven (7) business days after the actual installation date. NIC will acknowledge receipt of all Service Credit Request forms via email within twenty-four (24) hours after such receipt and will review all requests within ten (10) business days after such receipt. Customer will be notified via email upon resolution of the request. Customer shall cooperate with NIC in the Service Claim investigation. When Service Credit Request forms are submitted, the Customer shall pay its entire service bill, and shall not setoff any Service Credits it would anticipate receiving from NIC. 3.0 SERVICE CREDIT NIC will issue a Service Credit to Customer’s account upon approval of its Service Credit Request. Service Credit will appear on the invoice issued in the month following the month in which the Service Credit Request was approved. The Service Credit provided for in these SLAs assumes compliance by Customer with the terms and conditions of its Internet Access Services Agreements with NIC. Customer’s failure to comply therewith shall invalidate the Guarantees provided herein. Furthermore, NIC shall not be held liable for failure to fulfill its obligations hereunder if such failure is due to: a. Customer's use of bandwidth in excess of the amount specified in its Internet Access Services Agreements with NIC. b. Network maintenance. c. Emergency maintenance. d. Circuits or network elements provided by other telecommunications providers or other common carriers. e. An external Internet Service Provider or an Internet exchange point. f. Acts or omissions of Customer or an authorized user. g. Customer equipment, facilities or applications. i. Local access provider outages or service interruptions. j. Acts of God, civil disorder, natural cataclysm, or any other occurrences or circumstances beyond the reasonable control of NIC. For purposes described herein, a “one (1) day credit of the NIC Internet Access Service Monthly Fee” is equal to 1/30th of a NIC Dedicated Internet Access or Co-location Service’s monthly recurring access charge. Accordingly, a “two (2) day credit of the NIC Internet Access Service Monthly Fee” is equal to 2/30th of the same charge, and a “three (3) day credit of the NIC Internet Access Service Monthly Fee” is equal to 3/30th of the same charge. Service credits will not be compounded in any given month. Service Credit Requests are evaluated per service, per month, and in no case shall exceed the total cost of the NIC Internet Access Service Monthly Fee. Service Credits delivered as remedies in conjunction with SLAs described herein represent NIC’s sole responsibility and the Customer’s sole remedy related to the Internet Access Service(s) to be provided under NIC’s Dedicated Internet Access, Co-location, and Web Hosting services/products. 4.0 POLICY CHANGE NIC, in its sole discretion, may change, amend or revise this policy at any time. Such changes or revisions will be deemed effective upon posting an applicable modification to these Service Level Agreements on NIC’s publicly accessible web site.