Service Integration and Service Management (SMOP)

CN-SPs shall operate escalation and complaints processes, and these shall comply with the following principles:

• the party raising the escalation or complaint shall be kept informed of progress at an appropriate interval as agreed with the party raising the escalation;
• all escalations and complaints shall be managed to an appropriate conclusion with agreed remedial actions to prevent reoccurrence;
• escalations and complaints shall not be closed without the agreement of the party that raised them;
• details of all escalations and complaints shall be retained on the audit trail for a period of two years.
• activity should be undertaken by the party against whom the complaint was made in order to minimise the re-occurrence of the issues underlying reported escalations and complaints

Service level metrics

CN-SPs shall comply with the minimum service levels set out in this paragraph 3.3.1.1 when delivering HSCN Connectivity Services.

These service levels apply during the Service Hours which are contracted between the HSCN Consumer and the CN-SP.

CN-SPs will monitor core network latency, jitter and packet loss using network monitoring protocols, for example, TWAMP or Cisco IPSLA, and in accordance with obligations TOPS9, TOPS10 and TOPS11. Network monitoring sessions will be initiated from 4 main POP (Point of Presence) locations and to include PE devices adjacent to both North and South HSCN Peering Exchange.

Each of the Supplier's POPs delivering HSCN Services will in turn act as a network monitoring responder, providing two-way performance measurements across the key components of the Supplier's core network. Suppliers will monitor the network performance from each peering exchange location to each POP location.

Availability measurement

The availability measurement is applicable to the service boundaries as described in technical obligation TOPS13a of the HSCN Obligations Framework.

Availability shall be measured using the statement set out below (and in the document Telecommunications Systems and Services’ Chapter 5: Availability, Paragraph 96) and be reported on a monthly basis to the HSCN authority using the HSCN performance report template provided.

Availability % = ((Total – To) / Total) x 100
To = the total duration (in minutes) of all outages
Total = the total minutes in the consumers contracted service, within a monthly period

Incident resolution time measure

This is measured for each Severity Level (as defined in paragraph 4.1) separately using the measurement methodology provided by the CN-SP and included in the HSCN Consumer Contract.

Network Performance Measurement

To be measured using the following methodology. Test messages of 200 packets should be sent every 15 minutes, for each pair of endpoints being monitored (PE and Peering Exchange Network router). In total, 19200 packets should be sent in a 24-hour period during contracted Service Hours for each pair of endpoints being monitored.  Where measurements are taken over QoS service classes then the results should be aggregated. The mean average should be achieved, which provides figures for network latency and jitter performance and packet delivery. 

Network latency and Jitter Performance

Two-way Active Measurement Protocol (TWAMP) shall be used when measuring network performance.

In line with TOPS9 / TOPS10, network latency and jitter shall be

• the two-way latency for that 24-hour period in contracted Service Hours
• the jitter for that 24-hour period in contracted Service Hours

Packet delivery

In line with TOPS11, packet delivery shall be te packet loss for that 24-hour period in contracted service hours.

All daily figures will be aggregated to a complete month, this will then be divided by the total number of days within that monthly period to provide an average figure.

These KPIs are applicable to Consumer Network Service Provider (CN-SP) interactions with the Service Co-ordinator.