OJSC N.W. Telecom has taken part in the round table "Responsibility of a Communication Operator as a Service"

On 29th July 2009 OJSC North-West Telecom took part in a round table dedicated to the problems of communication operators ' responsibility for the quality and regularity of services provided to corporate clients . The IPNews Internet portal acted as the organizer of the meeting, and the participants included managers of telecommunication companies of St. Petersburg, IT directors of client companies, lawyers of the industry, and representatives of insurance companies and mass media.

The segment of corporate clients is strategically important for OJSC N.W. Telecom, especially under the conditions of the aggravating competition in the telecommunications market. At the moment, the Company provides services to about 110,000 corporate clients, from home offices to big interregional companies, in the Northwestern Federal District. The full range of communication services is provided to corporate clients : from traditional telephony (including those using PBXs) and broadband access to the Internet to uniting client's remote offices by creating a protected virtual private network using the IP VPN technology (see more details on the web site www.aliance-pro.ru).

As to responsibility for the quality of the service , the words of Tatyana Smirnova, Director of the Sales and Servicing Organization Department, who spoke at the round table can be quoted: "Responsibility of the operator is one of competitive advantages in the corporate clients segment. OJSC N.W. Telecom aims at working with clients individually, satisfying their needs to the utmost, including the reliability of communication and quality of the services provided. As to SLA contracts*, we believe that the main thing is not just to sign such a contract, it is important to ensure that it is fulfilled. Which is a much more complicated and responsible task. The SLA monitoring system and ensuring standby communication system s is a "costly affair". Not so many corporate clients are ready to pay extra for standby channels and equipment ".

The amount of damage inflicted to companies by interruptions in communication and possible options of compensation and insurance were discussed at the round table, too. Representatives of OJSC N.W.Telecom noted that the problem concerned both client companies and, even more so, operator s themselves who incurred most serious material losses from damage on own networks. It was noted that North-West Telecom, which provided services to about 4.5 million telephones and about 760,000 broadband access ports in the Northwestern Federal District, spent scores of millions of roubles annually for the restoration and repairs of damaged communication lines and facilities. The following causes of interruptions in the Company's communication functioning were named: unauthorized work of outside organizations in the areas where cable facilities passed, vandalism and actions of trespassers (including theft of copper cable) on local communication networks, unfavourable weather conditions (storm wind, strong snow-fall, etc.), as well as technical troubles and failures in the operation of the equipment (or software), which had been becoming fewer and fewer with each passing year, as OJSC N.W. Telecom had been using more and more up-to-date fail-safe equipment , and standby servers and power supply units, etc. had been installed.

In the course of the discussion the participants listened to opinions of the representatives of all parties, shared experience in organizing SLA and real damage insurance , gave examples of the experience of other countries and discussed the prospects of developing the responsibility of the operator as a service in Russia .

When the round table was close to its end, joining the opinions of the representatives of the telecommunication industry who attended the event, Tatyana Smirnova noted that OJSC N.W. Telecom was open for interacting with clients and was ready to bear responsibility for the provided services, having emphasized that "operator's responsibility meant not just legal fines, penalties or forfeits, it also included annual multi-million investment in the construction, upgrading and maintaining one's network (channels and equipment ) in a state ensuring the maximum fail-safety and the minimum of failures when providing services to clients".

* SLA is a Service Level Agreement. Such an agreement formalizes the quality of service , this is a document describing in detail all services provided to the client , clearly setting forth the timing of solving any incidents and problems and stipulating fines and sanctions to be imposed on the contractor if the quality of services becomes lower than the level provided for by the agreement.