How to Read an Internet SLA Before You Sign

A service level agreement (SLA) is the part of a connectivity contract that defines what the provider commits to — and what happens if it falls short. Many businesses sign without reading it closely, then discover during an outage that the commitments were weaker than they assumed.

Availability

Availability is usually expressed as a percentage of time the service is up each month. The difference between figures matters: 99.5% allows roughly 3.6 hours of downtime a month, while 99.9% allows about 43 minutes.

How availability is measured

Check whether measurement covers the whole service or only the provider's core network, how outages are detected and whether planned maintenance is excluded.

Response time

The time within which the provider acknowledges a fault and starts working on it. Fast response matters, but it is only the beginning.

Mean time to restore

Restoration commitments describe how quickly service should be back. This is often more important to your business than response time.

Service credits

Credits compensate you when targets are missed, usually as a percentage of the monthly fee. Understand how they are calculated and how to claim them.

Exclusions

Common exclusions include planned maintenance, issues caused by customer equipment, force majeure and delays in site access. Make sure exclusions are reasonable.

Reporting

Ask whether the provider shares monthly reports on availability and incidents.

Escalation

Look for a documented escalation matrix with named roles and timelines.

Questions to ask

How is downtime measured? What restoration targets apply to my site? How do I claim credits? Who do I call at 2 a.m.?

The bottom line

Read SLAs carefully and ask questions before signing. UbiFi Business SLA provides clear commitments, reporting and escalation.

Learn more about Business SLA & Assurance from UbiFi, or talk to our team.