British Telecommunications Plc announced at the Telecommunications Managers Association convention the introduction of service-level guarantees for international private circuits. The scheme, which on the face of it is an innovative attempt to secure international traffic, gives customers reduced rental according to the cumulative downtime of each individual digital circuit in any given month. There are, however, a few flies in the ointment. First, the monthly downtime must reach a hefty three hours per month before any penalty is incurred by BT; secondly, the customer is dependent on BT accurately locating exactly where the fault is. A statement from the company explains, reasonably enough, that the guarantee covers only customer-reported faults located by BT as occurring in either the UK Network or the International Network (up to the destination frontier station), which may open the way to some finger-pointing between Telecom and the oversees carrier. In the event that the unfortunate user does find a link down for three hours, the equivalent of 15% of the monthly rental will be credited to the next bill. Should the time total six hours or more, this figure rises to 30%. The company says that the first payments will appear in customer bills next April, but fault recording and payment will be back-dated from December 1 this year. The company was unable to say how many customers would have received recompense had the scheme been in place this year. Far be it from us to suggest BT customers should send an employee with a pneumatic drill to dig up the road when their lines aren’t in use.
