In a bid to bring the standards of professional outsourcing to network service provision, GTE Internetworking has unveiled what it claims is the industry’s first service level guarantee for internet connectivity. The guarantee provides one day’s credit to any customer who is unable to reach an Internet destination for ten minutes or who suffers in excess of ten percent packet loss for ten minutes, due to a fault on the GTE backbone. However the deal specifically excludes faults on customer premises equipment or on telephone networks. Nor has GTE invested any more money in its existing network infrastructure. Rather, the company’s John Vincenzio says, GTE will be relying on the excellence of its existing assets. We continually make every effort to ensure that our network is one of the industry’s fastest and most reliable, he asserts. The service level guarantee now comes free with any purchase of dedicated connectivity from GTE.
