Service Level Agreement

This Service Level Agreement sets out a description how reports of system problems, called “Cases”, are reported and characterized, as well as the Service Level Agreement with Big Yellow Bee’s response and restoration  time obligations for each.

Case Severity Classification
‍
Big Yellow Bee determines Case priorities as defined below:

Severity
Examples
Critical
Total System Outage; or Total service outage for other primary services related to Big Yellow Bee's Team’s Offering affecting loss of origination or termination capability for more than 5% of subscribers; or System congestion resulting in call blocking greater than 10% for greater than 60 seconds.
Major
Intermittent degradation of services; partial loss of access to provisioning; or The customer has been given a workaround but the situation still requires constant attention due to the temporary nature of the workaround; or Loss of access for routine administrative activity.
Minor
Non-system-affecting problems. Documentation inaccuracies Problems introduced through incorrect configuration of the system.

Service Level Requirements for response, recovery and resolution times, by case severity.

Severity
Examples
Examples
Critical
Total voice service outages: 90% in 2 hours after Big Yellow Bee notification of incident* All other Critical cases: 90% in 4 hours after Big Yellow Bee notification of incident*
All Critical cases shall be worked to service recovery.  If follow-up is necessary, post service recovery, it will be followed up with a Major.
Major
n/a
90% resolved in 30 days or with next delivery of Maintenance Release**
Minor
n/a
90% resolved in 180 days

*In the event that the customer requests Big Yellow Bee to delay case resolution until an open maintenance window, Big Yellow Bee reserves the right to include such delays in measuring the performance against the resolution targets.

If customer personnel are not able to maintain constant contact during the resolution of Critical cases, Big Yellow Bee reserves the right to downgrade the category assignment of the case.

** With the exception of critical issues, code changes are applied to the system through regularly scheduled maintenance releases which might not fall within the 30 day window.

Non-critical performance objectives for resolution may from time to time default to maintenance release schedules and maintenance window schedules for the Big Yellow Bee’s Team’s Offering.

‍The above service level requirements are applicable to the Big Yellow Bee’s Team’s Offering only and exclude ISP, networking, MPLS connections, service provider roles, responsibilities, channels or customer LAN/WAN systems and phones. Big Yellow Bee will not be responsible for case work and delays resulting from the customer’s activities and responsibilities. Case work and delays arising as a result will be billable at Big Yellow Bee’s then-current time and material rates.

Unavailability

At customer’s request, Big Yellow Bee will calculate Total Unavailability.  Total Unavailability comprises the number of minutes in which the Big Yellow Bee’s Team’s Offering service was completely unavailable or as mutually agreed to be performing so poorly as to be effectively unusable within the demarcation point of Big Yellow Bee’s data center infrastructure. Total Unavailability will be counted only if the customer opens a Critical trouble ticket with Big Yellow Bee’s customer support within twelve (12) hours of the total outage.

Exclusions
‍
The following shall be excluded from the application of service level requirements and the measurement of Total Unavailability (“Exclusion’):

*In the event that the customer requests Big Yellow Bee to delay case resolution until an open maintenance window, Big Yellow Bee reserves the right to include such delays in measuring the performance against the resolution targets.

  • Failure by the customer to open a critical trouble ticket with Big Yellow Bee’s customer support within twelve (12) hours of the total outage;
  • Faults arising from the customer’s or a downstream service provider’s equipment or applications;
  • Equipment outside of Big Yellow Bee’s data center demarcation including, but not limited to, phones, handsets, routers, switches, client registration errors, WiFi, 3G/4G/LTE, internet, MPLS, IP/Ethernet circuits, PSTN;
  • Customer’s or customer’s agent’s acts or omissions, or those of the downstream service providers;
  • The duration of time required for customer and/or downstream service provider to provide SIPPIO’s staff access to data needed to troubleshoot and isolate the causes;
  • Reasons of force majeure, emergency or threat;
  • The duration for which any service provided by customer is down or unavailable to Big Yellow Bee; or
  • Periods of notified maintenance.

Service Credits

After Big Yellow Bee’s closure of the critical case, for each cumulative hour of Total Unavailability, customer’s account shall be credited the pro-rated charges for one day of the monthly charges for multiplied by the number of lines assigned to the respective End User and specifically affected by the total outage. The total calculated credit will be used to offset future months’ service charges. Service credits have no cash value.

Customer’s right to the aforementioned service credits shall be in full and final settlement of Big Yellow Bee’s liability for failure to achieve service level requirements