Service Level Agreement

DNA Communications, Inc.

SLA – Service Level Agreement

This Service Level Agreement (SLA) is for paying customers that include this SLA as part of the agreement between your company (You or Your) and Digital Network Access Communications, Inc. (DNA, We or Us). Our SLA is below, however if you require a custom agreement please contact DNA.

I.                   INTRODUCTION

This SLA defines the levels of service You can expect from Us. The Digital Network Access Communications, Inc (dba, DNA Communications, Inc).  Terms and Conditions, which are attached to and incorporated in this Agreement, state the obligations and responsibilities of You and DNA in this business relationship.

II.                   SERVICE DESCRIPTION

We will allocate to You a telephone number which has a local presence number or take over responsibility for a telephone number which has been ported from another telecommunications operator through which DNA will deliver calls to You. Where We agree to take over a ported telephone number(s), this telephone number will be ported to us in accordance with DNA’S policy on number portability and our contractual arrangements with the other operator. The availability of such a number shall be subject to that Agreement.

Incoming calls to the local presence numbers allocated to the Service will be delivered to those numbers nominated by and agreed with You at the charges identified in this Contract.

III.              SERVICE AVAILABILITY

A.                 Our Obligations

We will use our best efforts to provide the Services 24 hours a day throughout the year. However, DNA’s Service Availability obligation will be achieved if the Services are available for not less than 99.5% of each calendar year, commencing on the Service Start Date and each anniversary of that date.

Failure to meet the above Service Availability obligation will entitle You to claim service credits as detailed in Section 6.

B.                  Restrictions

Planned Outages notified to You at least 3 Working Days in advance shall not be deemed occurrences of unavailability for the purposes of this Service Standard and shall not be included when calculating Service Availability.

Outages that are deemed by Us (acting reasonably and with evidence) to be the direct result of Customer Responsible Incidents shall not be included when calculating Service Availability.

IV.             INCIDENT MANAGEMENT

A.                 Incident Reporting Procedure

The following process outlines Our incidents procedure:

1.                  You shall contact the Service Desk to report any issue with the Service or any other number of which We notify you for this purpose.

2.                  The Service Desk operative will log details of the reported problem on DNA’s Incident system and issue You a unique Incident Reference Number (IRN).

3.                  The Incident is diagnosed, and relevant action is taken to resolve the issue.

4.                  The Service Desk will diagnose the incident as either a Service Affecting problem or a Non-Service-Affecting problem and if required contact you for further information.

5.                  If the reported problem is deemed to be a problem at the other Network Operator’s level, we will advise You to contact Your Network Operator to manage the resolution of the issue.

6.                  Once the Incident has been resolved the Service Desk will confirm to You that the Service has been restored.

Where We become aware of an incident affecting the Service, We shall act promptly to log the incident with the Service Desk and the Service Operation Team and to issue an IRN. However, You acknowledge that We do not have an obligation to pro-actively monitor the Service.

B.                  Incident Escalation

Escalation procedures can be invoked in the following situations:

• Where the problem is serious enough to cause a significant impact or presents a significant threat to the Services.
• If a reported Incident exceeds the target TTR.
• Where an individual problem condition is particularly sensitive and is deemed by you (acting reasonably) to be business affecting.

Either DNA or You may at any time during the incident request immediate escalation. Escalation may be via the appropriate Service Desk contact or on a direct peer to peer level. All requests shall clearly state the reason for escalation and any subsequent actions will be recorded on DNA’s systems. We will respond to all such requests within 30 minutes of the request being made.

C.                  Major Incident Escalation

In the event of a major incident, as defined below, an action plan will be developed to resolve the incident. This action plan will be developed, agreed and communicated by both of DNA and You via a conference call or meeting. At the time a situation is classified or re-classified as a major incident, DNA and You will both nominate a “major incident manager” who will become the prime point of contact for all communications between us regarding that incident.

For these purposes, a “major incident” shall be any failure in the Services that causes either a complete or commercially significant loss of service to your customer base.

V.                Our Obligations

DNA’S problem resolution and rectification obligations are set out in the following table.

The Time to Resolve (TTR) obligations for the Services are shown in Table 2:

Table 1

The above times are time to identify & respond with ETA on service restore. Failure to meet the TTR obligation for Service Affecting Incidents shall entitle You to claim service credits as detailed in Section 6 of this Service Standard.

VI.             Restrictions

The TTR period shall begin once you notify the Service Desk, it is logged by the Service Operations Team and an Incident Reference Number (IRN) is allocated. We shall act promptly to log any incident you report to the Service Operations Team and to allocate an IRN. Where We become aware of an incident, the TTR period shall begin once We have logged the incident with the Service Desk and the Service Operations Team and an IRN is allocated.

The TTR period shall end once notice has been given to You by the Service Desk that the incident has been resolved. We will record the duration of the TTR period in order to assess compliance with our obligations under Section 5.

Incidents originating on-Site based equipment will be responded to within 4hrs, meaning the length of time from the issue of the IRN to a customer service engineer responding either through remotely accessing the Equipment or attending Site.

VII.           Progress Reports

We will contact You with a progress report within thirty (30) minutes of receiving Your call and We will subsequently update you with a report on our progress in resolving the incident at such frequency as We shall agree with You, not less than once every hour. We will continue to provide You with these updates at these intervals until the incident has been resolved, unless an alternative update schedule is agreed, or unless the process is put on hold because, for example:

1. We cannot gain access to the site
2. You instruct Us to suspend the process
3. You fail to provide any necessary information reasonably requested by Us

You may request additional updates at any time, by contacting the Service Desk and quoting the IRN.

VIII.        Planned Outages

Planned outages may occasionally be necessary for Us to carry out essential maintenance or upgrades to the Telecoms Cloud Limited Network, these will be kept to a minimum. Except in an emergency or when circumstances are beyond DNA’S control You will receive at least three (3) Working Days’ notice of any Planned Outages which will affect the Service Availability. We will use all reasonable endeavors to minimize any disruption of the Service. Arrangements depend on the nature of the Planned Outage and are as follows:

1. If the break in Service will only affect You, We will agree to a time and date for carrying out the Planned Outage.
2. If the break in Service affects the DNA Communications Network and We are unable to give customers three (3) Working Days’ notice, We will give You as much notice as reasonably practicable and We will provide You with a full explanation of the reasons why three (3)  Working Days’ notice could not be given.

All Our maintenance operations are controlled by internal procedures. All notifications will be transmitted by fax and e-mail to You.

You can contact the Service Desk to request an alternative time for the Planned Outage, which We will use all reasonable endeavors to implement. We will provide notice of Planned Outages to the contact(s) You designate. If You wish to change your named contact, please contact the Service Desk and ask for your contact details to be amended.

Planned Outages of which DNA has notified You with at least three (3) Working Days’ notice shall not be included in TTR or Service Availability measurements subject to a maximum of two (2) Planned Outages in any contract year (a contract year being each successive period of twelve (12) months commencing on the Service Start Date or any anniversary of the Service Start Date). Any Planned Outages in excess of the limit of 2 Planned Outages per contract year referred to above shall be included in Service Availability measurements but shall not be included in TTR measurements. For the avoidance of doubt, any Planned Outages where We give You less than three (3) Working Days’ notice shall be included in Service Availability measurements but shall not be included in TTR measurements.

IX.              Confirmation of Incident Clearance

We will contact You as soon as possible and not more than fifteen (15) minutes after notification from our engineering staff that Service has been restored. In the event You contact us to report that the incident has disappeared or been traced to a non-DNA Communications Network, We will cancel processes in action.

X.                Response to Calls

When You report a problem to the Service Desk, the estimated targets for Us are:

1. To answer not less than 95% of calls within two (2) minutes.
2. Within thirty (30) minutes of receiving your call, to respond with an update and when possible provide an estimate of how long it will take to resolve the incident.

XI.              Incidents not involving the DNA Communications’ Network

If the problem cannot be traced to Our Services, infrastructure, Network or Equipment, and appears after reasonable investigation to be a problem with resources or equipment for which We are not responsible, then We will provide You with a report of tests that have been carried out and an explanation of how the problem was traced. This report will be supplied in writing to You if requested.

XII.           Billing

If You do not understand either the invoice or DNA’s invoicing system, please contact DNA’S billing team between 9:00am to 5:00pm central standard time, Monday to Friday, except public holidays.

XIII.         SERVICE CREDITS

Where We fail to comply with this Service Standard, We shall compensate You with service credits in accordance with the calculations set out in the following tables.

XIV.        Service Availability

In the event that We fail to meet the Service Availability, You shall have the right to service credits as detailed in Table 3.

Table 2

¹Average monthly Bills are based on the Bill invoices over the previous Service Measurement Period or the number of months from Service Start Date for the affected Services.

XV.          Incident Management

In the event that we fail to meet the TTR for Service Affecting Incidents, You have the right to service credits as detailed in Table 3.

Table 3

³Average monthly Bills are based on the Bill invoices over the previous Service Measurement Period or the number                          of months from Service Start Date for the affected Services.

XVI.        Service Credit Procedure

If requested, we will provide You with a monthly service delivery report within 72 hours which;

1. Describes our performance against these Service Standards; and
2. Sets out details of any service credits due to You with respect to any incident or (with respect to Service Availability) over any period.

We will then arrange for any service credits due to You to be credited to You as described in section 6.5, below.

XVII.     Service Credits and Payment of Claims

Any service credits due under Section 6.1 will be given during the month after the end of the relevant Service Measurement Period. Any service credits due under Section 6.2 will be given during the month after the month in which the relevant Service Affecting Incident occurred.

The issue of a service credit applied to your billing account will settle all valid claims for service credits. This can be used to offset Charges on future bills. If at any time an account enters into credit, You may request payment by BACS to reduce the account balance to zero. When the balance on the account is in debit, a BACS payment cannot be requested.

XVIII.   DEFINITIONS

• Customer Responsible Incidents

In the event that a Service Affecting Incident or Non-Service Affecting Incident is identified and proven as being directly attributable to Customer Equipment, the Site, Your power supplies, or Your actions or those of Your employees or agents, the incident shall be deemed your responsibility. Any such availability shall not be included in Service Availability calculation and accordingly, does not qualify for service credits.

• Incident Reference Number (IRN)

The unique number issued when logging an incident with Us.

• Internet Protocol (IP)

The protocol that enables the data to be split into packets and sent from one computer to another, perhaps via different routes (packet switching).

• Non-Service Affecting Incident

An incident or condition which is not a Service Affecting Incident.

• Planned Outage

All necessary equipment maintenance or upgrades to DNA’s Network will, wherever possible, be planned to avoid any interruption to the Service. Where We provide diverse circuits, We will not carry out planned maintenance on both routes at the same time, unless You have agreed in writing. In general, planned work would be scheduled at low traffic periods to minimize any disruption.

• Service Affecting Incident

Any failure of DNA’S transmission or terminating equipment which causes a material loss of signals in one or both transmission directions. In all such cases the Service shall be deemed unavailable and the length of downtime recorded by us from the point We allocate an IRN, as described in section IV. Examples: no incoming calls; no outgoing calls; noise on every call; post dial delay on every call; echo on every call.

For the avoidance of doubt, the following shall not constitute Service Affecting Incidents: intermittent noisy calls (normal conversation degraded), intermittent echo or inability to connect to one destination where others are connectable.

• Service Availability

The time for which DNA’S Service is usable, expressed as a percentage of the total time in a given Service Measurement Period. The Service shall be deemed available for the purposes of calculating Service Availability if the reason it is unavailable is outside of Our control, for example a Customer Responsible Incident, a Third Party Attributable Incident or a Planned Outage. The following formula will be used to calculate the service availability figure:

                        Availability % = M – zm   x 100

            Where:

            M = number of minutes in a year
zm = number of minutes where service in unavailable

The resulting figure shall be shown to 2 decimal places having “rounded down” from any figure with a greater number of decimal places.

Service unavailability commences from the point we allocate an IRN, as described in section 5.5. It concludes when both parties agree that the incident has been cleared.

• Service Measurement Period

This is twelve months from the Service Start Date and each subsequent period of twelve months.

• Time To Resolve (TTR)

The length of time from the issue of the IRN to the restoration of the Service.

• Third Party Attributable Incidents

A Third Party Attributable Incident means a Service Affecting or Non-Service Affecting Incident that is identified as not being caused by DNA’s (or its contractors’, employees’ or agents’) negligent act or omission or DNA’s (or its contractors’, employees’ or agents’) failure or delay in carrying out any of DNA’s obligations under this Agreement. Any downtime caused by a Third Party Attributable Incident shall not be included in Service Availability Measurements. Such incidents do not qualify for service credits. We will try to rectify such Third Party Attributable Incidents as soon as reasonably practicable.