In many cases, the technology needed to monitor networks and offer the kinds of guarantees that customers want hasn't been available on a carrier-grade scale until very recently. Providers have had a hard time getting a complete view of their own IP network's performance, let alone allowing customers to zero in on their portion of the network. In the meantime, business customers are rightfully demanding better service guarantees, despite the fact that measuring tools are just emerging and QoS still hasn't happened. The change is going to take time, but some service providers are beginning to recognize that good-faith SLAs can become a selling point for those providers that want to distinguish themselves from the pack. Fixing the problem doesn't necessarily mean service providers must magically pull these perfect monitoring tools and SLAs out of their hats.
Some analysts say enterprise customers simply want their carriers to stop violating their trust.
TeleChoice Inc. SLAs are also meant to indicate that service providers are proactively monitoring the network on the customer's behalf. SLAs have been an afterthought, a transport measurement. The change has to be from counting the packets to measuring the impact on a customer's business, he says. Across the board, customers and service providers agree that some amount of credit for a missed SLA isn't what they're after.