How long is an acceptable outage for a data T1, in your opinion?

[loup garou]

Let me preface by saying that this company is not absolutely dependent on their internet connection to do business. Unfortunately, in their building, they cannot get any flavor of DSL (too far from CO) nor cable (not wired). A T1 is their only option for high-speed internet.

I have a client whose T1 (full 1.5) has been down since Tuesday at 3pm. They reported it to me at 9am yesterday and I did some troubleshooting and determined the problem lay outside the LAN. Called Verizon around 9:45am yesterday. Since then, I have received no callbacks and have called every 2 hours during our business hours for updates. They always tell me that "the NOC is working on it" and that they will call me back. I never receive any callbacks, I have to call them. The most information I have gotten was yesterday when a tech told me that they were waiting for a callback from a DS3 carrier to determine the status of a line. Other than that, it's all "we're working on it." I've had better service and reliability on SDSL accounts. :roll:

Of course, I am going to petition their account manager for a credit (I am pushing for at least a month's service). Does anyone else think that almost 2 days of downtime is absolutely unacceptable for a T1? What sort of compensation should be expected for such an outage? I've never, ever had this long of downtime with other vendors. Like I said, these folks don't rely on their internet connection, but they DO PAY for the service and support of a full T1.

/rant

 

[Boscoh]

That is unacceptable. T1's are purchased mainly for their SLA, you can certainly get better bandwidth for a much cheaper price but usually not the same uptime assurance. Your SLA probably states 99.999% uptime, in which case they've most definitely broken that SLA and you can now get out of the contract without any penalties.

Personally, I'd call up my sales team at Verizon, and tell them that I'm calling around to competitors since they've broken their SLA. Usually calling your sales team is enough to get the problem handled quickly, and telling them you're thinking of going elsewhere with your business really should get their attention. In your situation, I probably really would call around and go somewhere else. If the problem really is on their end, then that is really, really horrible support. Call up another company and tell them your situation with Verizon and ask them if there is anything they can do to get your T1 up immediately if you switch to their service.

As for compensation, I dont think asking for one free month for each full day that the line was down is too much to ask for. We had a 4 hour outage a while back on one of our T-1's and SBC gave us 50% off our monthly charge for that month.

 

[Keitero]

Boscoh is right, you pay for T1 not just for the speed, but the fact that it has a ALMOST 100% uptime. Read the EULA, see what happens in this case, you might get free service for a month or something as compensation.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: Boscoh
That is unacceptable. T1's are purchased mainly for their SLA, you can certainly get better bandwidth for a much cheaper price but usually not the same uptime assurance. Your SLA probably states 99.999% uptime, in which case they've most definitely broken that SLA and you can now get out of the contract without any penalties.

Personally, I'd call up my sales team at Verizon, and tell them that I'm calling around to competitors since they've broken their SLA. Usually calling your sales team is enough to get the problem handled quickly, and telling them you're thinking of going elsewhere with your business really should get their attention. In your situation, I probably really would call around and go somewhere else. If the problem really is on their end, then that is really, really horrible support. Call up another company and tell them your situation with Verizon and ask them if there is anything they can do to get your T1 up immediately if you switch to their service.

As for compensation, I dont think asking for one free month for each full day that the line was down is too much to ask for. We had a 4 hour outage a while back on one of our T-1's and SBC gave us 50% off our monthly charge for that month.

Thanks for the advice. Verizon has confirmed that it is a problem on their end, so I'm in the clear. I was going to speak to their rep, but the tech advised me to wait until the end of the outage so that I knew exactly what their downtime was to report to the account rep, but now that I think about it, that's BS. Unfortunately, my contact at the client is out for the next few days, so I don't have their account rep's name, but I'm sure they can connect me from tech support as I have their account number.

I've been meaning to do some shopping around for them since their plans to move to SHDSL fell through. Verizon said they were ok for DSL, then shipped them the equipment, then pushed back install dates for 3 months, then said "oops, too far from CO." Sounds like a scam to keep them paying for the T1, no? Unfortunately, I've had problems with other vendors in the area when transitioning T1's. I had problems with XO (took 3 months, but that was a voice, a data, a point to point and some POTS in an allinone package--solid reliabliity though, one outage fixed in 2 hours due to equipment failure). I also had problems with Allegiance Telecom, but that was a switch over to Verizon, so they probably fvcked it up somehow.

Time for my 2 hour call for an update. I'm going to speak to their account rep now too. :|

Originally posted by: Keitero
Boscoh is right, you pay for T1 not just for the speed, but the fact that it has a ALMOST 100% uptime. Read the EULA, see what happens in this case, you might get free service for a month or something as compensation.

Yeah, unfortunately my contact at the client who deals with vendors is out of town. I know she has a copy of their contract, maybe her assistant can dig it up.

 

[WiseOldDude]

What availability does the contract provide for?

Yes, that is far too long, and extreemly poor customer service, but what you can really hold their feet to the fire with is the contracted availability or uptime.

 

[halfadder]

We had a T1 through Sprint/Sprintlink for 3 years. They did a great job of monitoring it for us. The only frameloss we ever had was during a 5 minute period, and *they called us* to let us know of the problem! Some packets still made it through so we didn't notice it ourselves.

That's the kind of acceptable T1 outage I can live with -- 5 minutes of downtime over 3 years.

42 HOURS is total, complete BS. You should not have to pay for that month of service at all. Even 4 hours... or 1 hour is too much downtime for a T1.

I hear you about the consumer broadband. Even my good DSL at home is spotty at times, but I've never even had 4 hours of outage on it in a row. Usually just a few minutes here and there, or some degraded performance for awhile, but no huge outages like 42 HOURS!

 

[loup garou]

It's pushing 48 hours now. I finally found my client's account rep. I got transferred around for a good 45 minutes. For some reason they couldn't find the account rep by using the company name, account id, or the main company phone number. What the fvck kind of business is this.

The account rep got through to a higher level tech who informed him that one of their T3s are down and that all lines muxed there are out, so I'm not alone. They have 2 techs who've been working on it since 11:30 AM (2.25 hours) Hopefully, there will be some serious fallout from this for Verizon. What a fvckup.

 

[Keitero]

Well all I can say is if they don't resolve this anytime soon, then you might consider switching ISPs.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: Keitero
Well all I can say is if they don't resolve this anytime soon, then you might consider switching ISPs.

Already considered!

It appears the line is back up as of 2:45 PM. I'm going to go over the contract with my client when she returns, see if we can get them out of it, get compensation for the outage, then get the hell out of the contract if Verizon didn't hold up their end and move to another provider.

 

[ScottMac]

A standard T1 SLA is 99.97% availability.

If the prolbem originates from a cut ("Cable-Seeking Backhoe"), it "beyond the control" of the carrier and is coverd in the SLA.

You should get a credit for the time you were down (minimum), frequently stretched to a week to a month, depending on the current PR motivation of the carrier.

IF the service has been good up till now, don't bother switching; any carrier can have unusual / bizarre occurrances beyond their control.

The customer service you describe is is completely unacceptable. At the least, you should complain about it to VZN as a separate sub-issue to the overall event ... regardless of what they explain as the cause of the issue.


You are within your rights as a customer to demand a "Root Cause Analysis" (RCA) and / or "Reason for Outage" (RFO). I'd also pursue that.

There are certainly reasons for a circuit to be down that long; they should be able to explain it. If not, find another carrier.

FWIW

Scott

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: ScottMac
A standard T1 SLA is 99.97% availability.

If the prolbem originates from a cut ("Cable-Seeking Backhoe"), it "beyond the control" of the carrier and is coverd in the SLA.

You should get a credit for the time you were down (minimum), frequently stretched to a week to a month, depending on the current PR motivation of the carrier.

IF the service has been good up till now, don't bother switching; any carrier can have unusual / bizarre occurrances beyond their control.

The customer service you describe is is completely unacceptable. At the least, you should complain about it to VZN as a separate sub-issue to the overall event ... regardless of what they explain as the cause of the issue.


You are within your rights as a customer to demand a "Root Cause Analysis" (RCA) and / or "Reason for Outage" (RFO). I'd also pursue that.

There are certainly reasons for a circuit to be down that long; they should be able to explain it. If not, find another carrier.

FWIW

Scott

Thanks for the insight, Scott! I was most frustrated from the lack of communication from their tech support. Since they have had problems with Verizon unrelated to this T1 (voice, billing issues), I believe this will be the last straw for them.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: werk
It's pushing 48 hours now. I finally found my client's account rep. I got transferred around for a good 45 minutes. For some reason they couldn't find the account rep by using the company name, account id, or the main company phone number. What the fvck kind of business is this.

The account rep got through to a higher level tech who informed him that one of their T3s are down and that all lines muxed there are out, so I'm not alone. They have 2 techs who've been working on it since 11:30 AM (2.25 hours) Hopefully, there will be some serious fallout from this for Verizon. What a fvckup.

While two days is totally unacceptible, it does happen if there is a major outage. And it happens to all the carriers.

 

[bluegreenturtle]

You mentioned XO and allegiance telecom (XO bought them) - ugh I worked with allegiance once before for a client. XO has been OK (just ok) but to this day (years later) I still wake up in the middle of the night imagining my hands clenched around the throat of the allegiance people we worked with. Possibly the worst company in the business.

 

[DnetMHZ]

When I was with UUNet we used to get 1 day credit for every hour our T was down, up to 30 days

 

[vegetation]

That's pretty bad, even my time warner cable modem hasn't had more than 2-3 hours of downtime in the entire year.