Ethernet reliability
One of the key features of the Ethernet service is reliability. Fibre Ethernet services are inherently more reliable than broadband lines. The fibres are themselves enclosed in strong fibre tubes in the ground, and are not subject to weather, water or radio interference. The service is not trying to squeeze every last bit of speed out of the line like broadband is, and so will reliably stay the same speed over time.
Making sure it works
Obviously, making sure things do not break is the utmost importance.
- We operate multiple routers and equipment at our end to minimise single points of failure.
- Our equipment has dual power feeds and is connected to data centre power which has UPSs and generators.
- We have spares for equipment on site in the data centre, which is only 10 minutes drive from our offices.
- We constantly monitor you line with a ping every second (providing you answer pings).
All of this should make a failure very unlikely, and detecting failure very prompt.
BT's core network has resilient components and is constantly monitored. BT maintain the link between us and you.
If you like we can arrange for dual fibres to your premises to minimise risk of fibre cuts (e.g. because of road works), though this is quite expensive.
If things break
In the unlikely event of a failure, we have 24 hour monitoring on our core network that will alert on-call staff, and data centre staff are available 24 hours a day if we need to do anything to fix a fault. We have an out of hours SMS alert system allowing you to contact on-call staff if you need.
Fixing things quickly.
BT have a service level agreement whereby they will fix any fibre faults promptly (within 5 hours of us reporting it). BT allow us to report faults 24 hours a day. BT take fibre services seriously and fix them quickly.
Compensation
BT have a service level agreement which includes paying us if they do not fix a fault promptly and paying more if they keep failing to fix a fault promptly several times in a month. Whilst these are not huge amounts, if you ask for it, we will happily pass on any compensation payments we actually receive from BT in relation to faults affecting your service, in full. See footnote.
How reliable
It is important to realise that whilst data centre power is reliable and fibres are reliable, things can break. It is possible for someone to have a DSL line that is more reliable than someone else's fibre. It is possible for your house to have fewer power cuts than a data centre. But in general that is not the case. In general data centre power is very reliable. In general fibre is very reliable and much more so than copper.
However, we strongly recommend you consider how important a working internet connection is to your business and properly consider contingency plans. Our staff can offer help and advice as well as services and equipment to help with this. We can provide routers that will automatically fall-back to alternative links. We can provide DSL lines and even 3G data services. It is also vitally important to regularly test your backup processes and services.
Please ask one of our team to discuss backup and redundancy plans for your service.
More reliable
We expect to set up a second point of presence for Ethernet services at some point, and offer separate internet access via a second Etherflow to that. This adds to the cost of the service but covers a wide variety of possible faults that could be in the fibre links, power supply, equipment, or internet back-haul at our main data centre. We will provide more details on the web site when available, but if this is of interest to you then please let us know.
Note: As per our normal terms we limit our liability to the amount paid for the service during the period the service was not working. We provide support during working hours (9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday except bank holidays) and informal support out of these hours. Some staff are on-call out of hours for major outages, and whilst we will usually be able to address any fault outside office hours we do not guarantee it. Our automated monitoring is for identifying major outages - for individual line fault we expect you to report the fault to us. The 5 hour time-scale for fault repair relates to a fibre link fault or core network fault in BT and starts when we report the fault to BT. We must first determine the fault is a BT fault which may involve our staff visiting the data centre, co-operation from you or your staff, and testing at your end first, all of which will delay reporting the fault and the 5 hour clock starting. The SLA from BT only applies for total loss of service faults. Compensation from BT relating to a single fault affecting multiple customers will be divided between all affected customers based on service speeds. You have to request compensation within one month of the fault being closed.
