Horrible Service Agreements

Forrest W. Christian forrestc at iMach.com
Sun Nov 30 03:23:45 UTC 1997


Over the last few months, I've been trying (without success) to find a
provider for our second T1 to the net.

Basically, all we want is a full-bandwidth T1 w/bgp4, to an upstream I am 
comortable with the quality of service of, and who can provide this to us 
(in montana) at a reasonable monthly rate.  Finding a suitable provider
hasn't been too hard, but the difficulty comes in when it's time to sign a
contract.

So far, we have accepted a proposal pending contract approval for TWO
different potential upstreams.  Both quoted a price of around 2500 per
month including local loop.  However, the contract terms include what I'm 
terming an anti-spam clause which generally states that if us or any of our
clients or their clients decide to "prevent others from enjoying the
internet" (paraphrasing) they can terminate us immediately and make us pay
for the remainder of the year term. 

Each (or maybe better said one or more) of the contracts also included
other terms which I felt were totally unreasonable. Such as not being able
to mention the name of your upstream.  Makes it kinda hard to tell
potential clients who you are connected to.  Another required us to
upgrade our equipment based on whatever specifications they felt was
necessary at that point.  And there were more.

Now, I understand the need to be able to terminate spam havens.  I also
understand the need to require your customers to use compatible and
reliable equipment. 

Let me explain my problem -- Lets assume that customer "a" decides to
purchase an account on our system to send out spam.  We don't know he's
planning to do this, but he does succeed in sending out 10,000 messages
before we find out.  Under both agreements, we can be immediately
terminated without notice and be required to pay for the remaining time on
the 12 month agreement.  Regardless if we terminate the offending user as
soon as we find out or not.

Another example.  Lets assume that someone in our upstream decided that we
MUST have a $250,000 router to connect to their system.  If we can't
provide such a beast, we are immediately terminated and required to pay
for the remaining year term.

Both of the potential upstreams have been wholly unwilling to negotiate a
contract in good faith to resolve these issues.  

I know that nanog is probably not the best forum for this, but I figured
it might be a good place to start to look for a provider which can:

   a)  Sell us a T1 line, with BGP4, with local loop to NPA NXX 406 443
       for about $2500/month, on a year term or less.

   b)  Not have such rediculous contract language.

I'd also like to hear what types of contracts are actually signed by
providers and if they are actually read before they are signed.

You can reply to me directly, instead of on the list, if you'd like.

-forrestc at imach.com





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