1. Introduction

This Service Level Agreement (SLA) is provided in addition to our contractual obligations under the terms and conditions for an International Leased Line and is limited in scope to wholly UK provided circuits with a contract length in excess of eleven months.

This document is part of the commitment that we provide to all customers and outlines the remedies available should we fail to meet our own high level of support and service.

2. Guarantees

Lawyers Online guarantees that the following minimum standards are met at all times.

Leased Line Network Backbone Availability

The backbone has a 100% availability guarantee.

To claim, the following must be submitted to Lawyers Online:

• Three date and time stamped ICMP traceroutes, taken at least one hour apart, within a four hour window, from the customer LAN must be submitted showing unavailability within the backbone.

Network Latency

There will be no more than an average of 120 milliseconds latency between any two routers on the backbone measured over a one hour period.

To claim, the following must be submitted to Lawyers Online:

• Three date and time stamped ICMP traceroutes, taken at least one hour apart, within a four hour window, from the customer LAN showing a latency problem within the backbone.

Customer Circuit Availability

Where the circuit from the customer premises to the point of presence was ordered by Lawyers Online, we will offer a 100% availability guarantee from the backbone to the customer connection point on the Managed Cisco Router regardless of the provision by a third-party (e.g. BT). This guarantee excludes problems caused by power disruption at the customer premises or any customer device and associated cabling. This clause does NOT apply to transit customers, customers with circuit backup services such as ISDN/ADSL or alternate/bonded leased lines or where customer premises hardware has not been provided by Lawyers Online.

To claim, the following must be submitted to Lawyers Online:

• The Lawyers Online customer fault reference.
• A copy of the attached device running configuration.
• A copy of the attached device SHOW VERSION (or non-Cisco equivalent) output.
• A copy of the attached device SHOW INTERFACE (or non-Cisco equivalent) output for the interface facing Lawyers Online during the outage.

Customer Circuit Repair Time

Where a circuit from the customer premises to the point of presence was ordered by Lawyers Online, we will offer a 6 Lawyers Online Business Hours return to service guarantee, regardless of the provision by a third-party (e.g. BT), in the event of a circuit failure. This guarantee excludes problems caused by power disruption at the customer premises or the customer router and associated cabling. This clause does NOT apply to transit customers.

To claim, the following must be submitted to Lawyers Online:

• The Lawyers Online customer fault reference
• The time of the first contact with Lawyers Online.

Exclusions

In all cases scheduled maintenance, as notified to the customer 48 hours in advance, and emergency maintenance where notified to the customer 4 hours in advance are both exempt from claims under this SLA. Emergency maintenance carried out with less than 4 hours notice may be exempt, should the impact of not carrying out the maintenance cause a breach of the SLA.

Denial of Service attacks against the customer's service is also exempt from claim under this SLA.

3. Remedies

Should any of the above metrics be breached then a service credit will be issued against the customer's circuit. The limit for claims is 10 days in a single 30 day period and 30 days in any 12 month period.

Network Backbone Availability

For each 1% of lack of availability the customer will receive 1 day of service credit. Only one of Customer Circuit Availability, Network Backbone Availability or Network Latency can be claimed in a single month.

Network Latency

For each 1% of substandard performance the customer will receive 1 day of service credit. Only one of Customer Circuit Availability, Network Backbone Availability or Network Latency can be claimed in a single month.

Support Performance

For each incident where support does not return a call within the specified period the customer will receive 0.5 days of service credit.

Customer Circuit Availability

For each 1% of lack of availability the customer will receive 1 day of service credit. Only one of Customer Circuit Availability, Network Backbone Availability or Network Latency can be claimed in a single month.

Customer Circuit Repair Time

For faults that are not remedied within the 6 business hours above the following remedies will be applied to the customers account:

4. Claims

To claim against this SLA the customer must submit a claim in writing to:

Technical Department,
Lawyers Online,
Hereford House,
3 Offa Street,
Hereford, HR1 2LL

Providing the information shown in the section entitled remedies above. Lawyers Online aims to reply and resolve all such claims within 60 days of receipt. Claims must be made within 30 days of the incident and proof of posting is not a proof of receipt.

5. Additional Information

Lawyers Online reserves the right to amend, modify or alter the thresholds and metrics measured by the SLA or change the level of remedy afforded to customers. Changes will be notified to the nominated contact at the customer organisation on a 30 day basis.

For the avoidance of doubt the following terms have been used in this document and have the following meanings:

"Attached Device" is defined as being the piece(s) of hardware that connect directly to the Lawyers Online provided Customer Premises Router.

"Remedy" is a credit made to a customers account upon the confirmation that a breach of this SLA has been made. Lawyers Online will apply credit within 60 days of the confirmation of a breach and the customer is expected to continue to make payments to cover outstanding invoices until such time as the credit has been applied. At no stage will Lawyers Online make payments other than in the form of service credits.

"Traceroute" is a generic term for a number of different software tools capable of providing network path diagnostics. Due to the nature of the protocol used (ICMP) and the priority applied to efficiently route packets within the network, instantaneous results from a particular router may indicate a breach of this SLA but repeated tests must be taken to eliminated expected performance changes due to load. Customers should also be aware that ICMP echo requests may be suppressed for network security reasons and other diagnostic measure may be requested in these instances. A breach of SLA will not be remedied should such a security measure be in place.

"Backbone" is the network and includes all links, hardware and devices used to transmit packets within the facilities associated with the network.