Service Level Agreement

1. Service Description 

1.1 Definitions

The following definitions used in this Service Level Agreement (“SLA”) shall have the meanings given to them below:

“Business Day” means Monday to Friday, excluding bank or public holidays in England;

“Business Hours” means 09:00 to 17:00 on a Business Day;

“CPE” means Customer Premises Equipment which includes the equipment we supply to the customer as an essential part of providing the Service such as the broadband router, power adaptor and ethernet cables;

“Force Majeure” means an event beyond our reasonable control including but not limited to any extreme or severe weather, flood, landslide, earthquake, storm, lightning, fire, subsidence, epidemic, acts of terrorism, outbreak of military hostilities, riots, explosions, strikes or other labour unrest, civil disturbance, sabotage, failure of a utility network or other act or any event that is outside our reasonable control;

“Service” or “Services” means the supply, connection and provision of the Connect Fibre broadband connection supplied to the customer.

“Service Credit” has the meaning given to it in clause 4.2; and

“Target Restoration Time” means the period of time we commit to resolving a fault in our Service arising out of an Unscheduled Outage as set out in the table at clause 2.7;

1.2 Scope

1.2.1 This Service Level Agreement (“SLA”) applies exclusively to all Connect Fibre Business Broadband and Enterprise customers and forms part of the agreement between you and us (as defined in our Business Broadband Service terms) for Services provided.

1.2.2 This SLA is written for installations where we have supplied and installed the CPE. We are not responsible for any customer systems performance where the customer uses third party equipment and/or the system integration has been completed by parties other than Connect Fibre.

1.2.3 The Service Levels set out in this SLA are targets only and we have no liability to you for a failure to meet them beyond the remedies detailed in this document.

1.2.4 Where we fail to meet the targets within the applicable period stated in the table at clause 2.7 of this SLA you will be entitled to the compensation in the form of Service Credits as set out in Section 4 below. You agree that such compensation shall be your sole and exclusive remedy and our sole liability in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise for our failure to meet those Service Levels for which Service Credits apply.

1.2.5 The Service Levels set out in this SLA are subject to the exclusions detailed in Section 3 below.

1.2.6 We have the right to vary the terms of this SLA from time to time by giving you at least 30 days’ notice in writing.

2. Service Operation and Restoration

Incident Reporting

2.1 You can report a Service fault to us by contacting our Business Helpdesk by telephone during normal Business Hours on 01223 080 790 or via email to support@connectfibre.co.uk.

Scheduled Outages

2.2 From time to time, we may need to repair, replace, maintain, or upgrade any of our network infrastructure beyond your premises to improve network performance, reliability, or features. Such planned maintenance will be referred to as a Scheduled Outage. We will endeavour to ensure that all such planned network maintenance shall be performed between the preferred hours of 22:00 – 06:00 and where possible at a weekend. Although a large window is advertised for contingency, the work often completes much quicker and any interruption of Service may only last for a small proportion of this.

2.3 Should any Scheduled Outage be likely to materially affect your Service then we will use reasonable endeavours to provide written notice of planned maintenance work on our website at www.connectfibre.co.uk/help or make every reasonable effort to notify you by email before any planned work is carried out that will be likely to have a material impact to your Service. Notification will be made to the primary email contact for the customer as advised on the Order Confirmation or as subsequently updated by the customer.

2.4 The Service Levels set out at clause 2.7 are not applicable for any Scheduled Outage and no Service Credits can be requested.

Unscheduled Outages

2.5 In the unlikely event you experience a total loss of Service caused by factors within our control which is not caused by a Scheduled Outage, this will be deemed an “Unscheduled Outage” for which Service Credits may apply.

Target Restoration Times

2.6 In the event of an Unscheduled Outage, you must, in the first instance, contact us to notify us of the fault in accordance with clause 2.1 of this SLA.

2.7 Once we have completed diagnostics of the Unscheduled Outage and a fault has been verified, we commit to resolving the Unscheduled Outage (as defined in clause 2.5 above) and restoring your Service within the Target Restoration Time period as set out in the following table:

 

2.8 The Target Restoration Time period begins from when you have notified us of the Unscheduled Outage in accordance with clause 2.1 and provided us with details of the fault and enough information to identify both you and the affected Service(s). Where an Unscheduled Outage is notified to us outside Business Hours then the Target Restoration Time period shall not start until Business Hours recommence.

2.9 The total restoration time ends when the Service is restored, less:

a) any time where the issue is with you, e.g. awaiting a response from you or awaiting for you to complete diagnostic activity;

b) any time awaiting access to your premises;

c) any time where factors outside of our reasonable control result in us being unable to gain access to our network to carry out a repair, and so our target restoration times may be suspended until access can be achieved. Examples include (but are not limited to) being unable to:

   a) Close a road to access network in the carriageway

   b) Deploy Traffic Management required for health and safety reasons

   c) Gain access to a site requiring access permissions

   d) Travel to or access to a site due to extraordinary weather conditions

Call out charges

2.10 In the event of an Unscheduled Outage requiring a Connect Fibre Engineer call out to you and your premises where no fault is found, or the fault is not with our network then a call out charge will be added to your following month’s Service charges. Call out charges are set out in our price guide which is published on our website at www.connectfibre.co.uk/price-book 

3. Exclusions

3.1 In addition to any term of our broadband service contract with you and clause 2.4 above, this Service Level Agreement and the corresponding Service Credits will not apply where:

3.1.1 you experience issues such as high latency, intermittent packet loss, or jitter. These issues are not covered by this SLA and are handled on a reasonable endeavours basis;

3.1.2 an incident is caused by a service failure from one of our commercial backhaul providers which is outside of our reasonable control to manage;

3.1.3 a fault occurs on a part of our network subject to specific health and safety, access, or security restrictions outside of our control e.g, Railway, Substation or similar;

3.1.4 the loss of Service or any other fault is due to Force Majeure;

3.1.5 the fault is caused by your actions, omission or delay;

3.1.6 the fault is due to a failure within your own network equipment or environment;

3.1.7 we can’t find a fault;

3.1.8 you are in breach of any part of the contract for your broadband service, including the terms and conditions for payment of invoices, or we have suspended the broadband service in accordance with the contract service terms.

3.2 In the event of any particular incident where we agree with you a different timescale for the Target Restoration Target as described in clause 2.7 of this SLA, that Service Level and any associated compensation will not apply in relation to that incident only.

4. Service Credits

4.1 If, in our reasonable opinion, the restoration time for an Unscheduled Outage exceeds the contracted Target Restoration Time Service Level period then subject to the exclusions in Section 3 above and Service Credit conditions set out in clause 4.2 below, you will be entitled to claim a Service Credit for that Unscheduled Outage for each consecutive day after the Target Restoration Time period has expired until the Service has been restored.

4.2 Service Credit claim conditions:

4.2.1 The Service Credit will be the sum equal to the pro-rata daily service charge for your affected broadband service.

4.2.2 The total Service Credits claimed in any month shall not in any circumstances exceed the total monthly service charge for the affected broadband service.

4.2.3 Only one claim may be made in respect of any single Unscheduled Outage or for each series of connected reported Unscheduled Outages.

4.2.4 To be eligible for a Service Credit, you must submit your claim within 30 days from the date that the Unscheduled Outage has been resolved. All claims must be submitted to our Business Helpdesk by email at support@connectfibre.co.uk.

4.2.5 Service Credits will be applied as a credit against the next broadband service invoice. We shall not in any circumstances be obliged to pay any money or make any refund to you.

4.2.6 Any Service Credits which are applied have been calculated as, and are, a genuine pre-estimate of the loss likely to be suffered by you.