“Managed”
MPLS Wide Area Network Services
Managed MPLS WAN
CONTENTS
1.
MPLS WAN Service Introduction ............................................................................................................... 4
2.
Connection Types ...................................................................................................................................... 6
ADSL2+ ......................................................................................................................................................... 6
FTTC .............................................................................................................................................................. 7
EFM - Ethernet in the First Mile ..................................................................................................................... 8
Fibre Ethernet leased lines ............................................................................................................................ 9
Relative Throughputs................................................................................................................................... 10
3.
Customer site equipment ......................................................................................................................... 11
Overview ...................................................................................................................................................... 11
Customer Site Requirements ...................................................................................................................... 11
Circuit Presentation ..................................................................................................................................... 12
ADSL........................................................................................................................................................ 12
FTTC ........................................................................................................................................................ 12
EFM - Ethernet in the First Mile ............................................................................................................... 12
Fibre Ethernet leased lines ...................................................................................................................... 13
Customer Site Routers ................................................................................................................................ 13
4.
Resilience options .................................................................................................................................... 13
Overview ...................................................................................................................................................... 13
Fibre and Copper ..................................................................................................................................... 14
Dual Fibre Ethernet – using different Carriers fibre ................................................................................. 15
Dual Fibre Ethernet – using Openreach ‘tails’ ......................................................................................... 16
Common Tail routes ................................................................................................................................ 16
Openreach Resilience ............................................................................................................................. 16
5.
Multi- Site Wide Area Networks ............................................................................................................... 17
6.
QoS – Class of Service............................................................................................................................ 18
7.
Network Service Design .......................................................................................................................... 19
Introduction & Responsibilities .................................................................................................................... 19
802.1Q Trunk Configuration ........................................................................................................................ 19
MTU size ...................................................................................................................................................... 19
Customer site LAN – supported options ...................................................................................................... 19
Default deployment .................................................................................................................................. 19
Two LAN port option ................................................................................................................................ 20
Trunk option ............................................................................................................................................. 21
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8.
Quoting & PreSales support .................................................................................................................... 21
9.
Ordering & Provisioning ........................................................................................................................... 22
WAN deployment ......................................................................................................................................... 22
Site Surveys & Circuit Installation Lead-times ............................................................................................. 22
10. In-life Service and Support ...................................................................................................................... 23
11. Service Levels ......................................................................................................................................... 24
Monitoring & Service Management ............................................................................................................. 24
Availability .................................................................................................................................................... 24
Network Performance .................................................................................................................................. 25
Latency .................................................................................................................................................... 25
Jitter ......................................................................................................................................................... 25
Packet Loss ............................................................................................................................................. 25
12. Billing ....................................................................................................................................................... 26
13. Optional Service Reporting ...................................................................................................................... 26
14. Site Connection Upgrades ....................................................................................................................... 26
Copper services ........................................................................................................................................... 26
Fibre services .............................................................................................................................................. 26
Adding Resilience ........................................................................................................................................ 26
Upgrade Request Process........................................................................................................................... 27
15. Minor Service Changes ........................................................................................................................... 27
16. Planned Maintenance .............................................................................................................................. 27
17. Termination of Service ............................................................................................................................. 27
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1. MPLS WAN Service Introduction
The Convergence Group are a specialist, business focussed, Wide Area Network operator and an Internet
Service Provider.
The Convergence Group deliver private MPLS WAN services both nationally & internationally which can be
integrated, as required, with Internet and data centre services into a complete & secure private-public
network –
The Convergence Group are carrier agnostic and have established wholesale partnerships and Network-toNetwork Interfaces with the UK’s major carriers and a number of International operators. This gives us the
capability to provide national coverage with a comprehensive range of connections – seamlessly as part of
one service from a single supplier. Network sites can be provided with two connections - from different
carriers - to provide automatic backup where site resilience is required.
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The Convergence Group core network is connected by diverse high-capacity Network to Network Interface
connections to UK national networks from –

BT Openreach

BT Media & Broadcast

BT Wholesale

Colt

EuNetworks

SSE (Neos)

Talk Talk Business

Virgin Media Business

Vodafone (C&W)
And further connected with other networks from –

Airspeed, Eire

Kingston Communications

Level 3 International

GTT International

Data Centres
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The national coverage of Convergences’ WAN services gives customers a full range of connection types and
a comprehensive set of options, from which to choose any combination to build the required Private Wide
Area Network –





Secure, Private MPLS Wide Area Network
o Any-to-Any connectivity
o Flexible architecture, supports DR & Business Continuity
o IP Quality of Service traffic prioritisation classes
o Scalable
Optional
o 24x365 Monitoring
o One point of Contact: 24x365 UK based Service Desk
Comprehensive range of Site Connection types
o Small sites with Private Broadband connections –

ADSL2+ Broadband

FTTC – Fibre to the Cabinet Broadband
o Medium sites with –

EFM – Ethernet in the First Mile

Fibre Ethernet leased line services – up to 100Mbps
o Major sites with –

Fibre Ethernet leased line services – up to 1Gbps and beyond

Dual carrier fibre for resilience
o At any sites these connections types can be combined for a resilient service – for example:

Dual Fibre Ethernet – using different Telco Carriers

Fibre Ethernet with EFM backup

EFM with FTTC backup

FTTC with ADSL2+ backup
Internet access
o Centralised via hosted firewalls
o Direct to one or more sites using the logical separation over the same physical circuit as the private
WAN
Options for ‘on-net’ access to o Data centres
o SIP Trunk Voice over IP services
o Payment Services providers
The Managed MPLS WAN service includes; circuit supply, CPE supply, circuit installation and service rental
with reactive supplier management.
2. Connection Types
The MPLS WAN service offers national coverage for many different connections types, including:-
ADSL2+
For small sites and home-workers the almost universally available ADSL broadband connections provided
via BT’s industry leading 21st Century Network is the most cost-effective connectivity solution. As part of the
UK national network site a can be connected directly, securely and privately into the MPLS network making
small offices & home-workers part of the private MPLS WAN.
A pre-requisite for an ADSL service is a BT PSTN phone line, which Convergence Group can supply if
required (Note that single sourcing the Line and the ADSL service with Convergence Group will avoid
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potential dual supplier issues & delays in provisioning or trouble-shooting if the PSTN is supplied by a 3rd
Party).
An existing ADSL service can be migrated from the current provider to the Convergence Group however this
migration process will necessarily mean a period of interruption to service while the migration occurs and a
new router is connected. This interruption can be avoided if the new Convergence Group service and router
are on a new or spare PSTN Line.
ADSL is a shared service – and, although private, traffic across the national networks flows over paths that
are used by many other ADSL users. As a result the service may slow somewhat at busy times. ADSL is
asymmetrical; the downstream speed is greater than the upstream speed to suit the typical profile of users
mostly accessing material outside their site and only generating small amounts of upstream traffic. The
asymmetry needs to be taken into consideration if a site must upload large files or has other particular
requirements for upstream bandwidth.
The performance of an ADSL connection will depend upon the sites location – in particular the length/quality
of the PSTN line. In most urban & suburban areas the local exchanges now provide ADSL2+ services which
achieve up-to 20Mbps on some short lines, with typical speeds for most users being in the 10-15Mbps range
on good lines, falling to a just few Mbps on long/poor lines.
In some rural and other less populated areas, the local exchanges have not yet been upgraded to ADSL2+
and they currently only provide ADSL Max up-to 8Mbps services. In these more dispersed areas the
majority of users will be on medium-long lines where, there’s little difference between the speeds achieved
by ADSL Max or ADSL2+, so in practice most users on these exchanges won’t be overly disadvantaged by
not currently being able to have ADSL2+ services.
Note that the Hull area is a Kingston Communications monopoly & not part of BT’s national network - sites in
that area will need different arrangements (this covers the HU1 – HU20 postcodes, for sites in these areas please
ask for service availability details).
The UK national network includes all of Northern Ireland, for sites in Eire the Convergence Group can also
provide a range of site connectivity options which includes ADSL and Fibre leased lines - please let us have
details of your requirements for any sites in Eire.
FTTC
For many urban locations, and increasingly more widely, Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) services are now
available. By placing the broadband electronics in street cabinets, close to the user’s site, the broadband
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performance can be significantly enhanced. The system uses Very High Speed ADSL technology between
the site and the street cabinet. The cabinet is connected to high capacity fibre linking it, thorough the local
exchange, onward to the national network. The much shorter copper line not only has much higher
performance but should also be more reliable.
FTTC can deliver speeds of between 40 and 80Mbps and also has increased upstream performance making
it suitable for somewhat larger branch sites, heavy users & those with greater upstream requirements.
A BT PSTN phone line is still a pre-requisite for an FTTC service and the same national coverage; Hull, NI &
Eire arrangements as for ADSL.
EFM - Ethernet in the First Mile
EFM also uses the same local copper cable infrastructure as PSTN phone lines and so is widely available. It
combines multiple, dedicated copper pairs into a single Data service delivering a higher capacity copper data
connection than Broadband. EFM performs technically and contractually as the equivalent of a traditional
leased line. EFM does not need, nor does it provide, a PSTN phone service.
The EFM service gives a dedicated connection of between 3Mb to 20M depending upon line length and has
the strong service level agreement needed to suit those medium sized branch offices where fibre isn’t
available and it is useful as backup for sites with a fibre leased line.
Although the headline speed of an EFM service is less than headline speed of FTTC, its throughput of
sustained data transfer is higher because it is a dedicated, rather than shared, connection.
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Fibre Ethernet leased lines
The Convergence Group are carrier agnostic and can provide WAN services utilising all of the UK’s major
carriers. This capability enables customers to benefit from whichever Telco carrier’s infrastructure is most
technically and commercially suited to their site’s needs.
Fibre Ethernet WAN services are ideal for large branches and key enterprise sites. They are delivered to the
customer’s premises via dedicated high-capacity and highly reliable fibre. New installations will normally be
on 100Mbps bearer circuits so that the network service can be provisioned at an initial bandwidth between
10Mbps and 100Mbps in 10Mbps increments. The service is then scalable with bandwidth upgrades in
10Mbps increments available on short lead-times at nominal cost.
For large sites with very high bandwidth requirements, Fibre Ethernet services delivered over 1Gbps or
higher are available either directly into the private MPLS WAN or as dedicated connections to data centres,
replication and disaster recovery sites.
The same agnostic carrier relationships also offer the opportunity to provide resilience at key sites such as
server rooms & data centres by using diverse circuits from two different carriers – see the Resilience options
section for more details.
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Relative Throughputs
Although Broadband technologies have advanced significantly since their early days of just fixed 512K, 1M
and 2Mbps services and headline speeds currently range up to 80Mbps, it’s important to keep in mind two
key features of copper Broadband services: they are shared services and throughput will be constrained at
busy times, there is an upper limit to their capacity – they’re not scalable.
Fibre Ethernet leased lines are dedicated and highly scalable – the same fibre can support 10M, 100M and
1Gbps services. Copper EFM ‘leased line equivalent’ services are a hybrid; they’re dedicated but not
scalable. The diagram gives an indication of the relative throughput of the different type of services -
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3. Customer site equipment
Overview
The Convergence Group Managed MPLS WAN service includes provision and support of the site routers /
switches that connect directly the end-customers Local Area Network.
However, as part of the circuit installation the Telco carrier will install some equipment (NTE: Network
Terminating Equipment) at the customers site to terminate their cable.
The detail of the NTE will vary depending upon the carrier and type of connection. The carrier termination
point, the router location, suitable power sockets and the connection to the end-customers LAN or border
network must all be adjacent to each other at each of the WAN sites.
This NTE is maintained by the Telco carrier via the Convergence Group.
Customer Site Requirements
The customer should ensure that their site(s) provide the necessary physical and network environment to
accommodate the WAN service equipment. The Customers site must provide:Customer Site Environmental Requirements
Environment
Suitable for IT equipment:
Secure, office or communications/server room or equipment rack/cabinet
Dry, Dust free & temperature controlled
Accommodation
Sufficient space to install & have access for maintenance to
the Network Terminating Equipment (NTE)
Power for NTE
Single circuit
Primary & Backup circuits
13A sockets
1
2
Consumption
between 25W & 75W
between 50W & 150W
(approx.)
(approx.)
The carriers’ circuit termination location, NTE location and Power sockets must all be adjacent to one
another and within a standard 1.5m cables length.
Cabling from the NTE to the customer’s router or other equipment is not included; this is the customers’
responsibility.
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Circuit Presentation
ADSL
The copper PSTN line is terminated on a standard telephone socket wall box. New line installations may
have socket with separate PSTN phone and RJ-11 Broadband connections; existing installations will need a
Micro-Filter to provide the RJ-11 Broadband connection. No mains power is required by the PSTN line.
Telco NTE
Space
standard telephone socket
Power
None
FTTC
The copper PSTN line is terminated on a standard telephone socket wall box. FTTC installations will have a
new style face plate installed (Service Specific Front Plate: SSFP) with a separate RJ-11 Broadband
connection for the Openreach provided VDSL Openreach NTE equipment. The Openreach NTE requires
mains power – a single 13A socket.
The site router will also require a 13A power socket; therefore an FTTC service will require 2 x 13A sockets
in total.
Telco NTE
Space
Size (HxWxD approx.)
Mounting
Power
standard telephone socket + NTE below
40mm x 250mm x 250mm plus small external power unit
Free-standing / place on a rack shelf (not supplied)
1 x 13A socket – 15W (approx.) plus a second socket for the site router
EFM - Ethernet in the First Mile
Multiple copper pairs are used for EFM – between 2 & 8 lines depending on the service – they are
terminated on standard telephone socket wall boxes. NB: these lines do not provide nor do they require a
PSTN phone service – they are dedicated to EFM. Special cables connect the multiple telephone sockets to
the carriers NTE device which requires mains power – one 13A socket. The site router will also require a 13A
power socket; therefore an EFM service will require 2 x 13A sockets in total.
Telco NTE
Space
Size (HxWxD approx.)
Mounting
Power
standard telephone socket + NTE below
40mm x 250mm x 250mm plus small external power unit
Free-standing / place on a rack shelf (not supplied)
1 x 13A socket – 15W (approx.) plus a second socket for the site router
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Fibre Ethernet leased lines
Fibre cables will normally terminate in a passive unit where the individual fibres are split out. This may be
located in an area of the building dedicated to carrier’s equipment with a fibre ‘tail’ entering the customer’s
office or the customer may have to accommodate the passive fibre unit. The fibre tail will terminate on a
carriers optical NTE device which will require mains power – one 13A socket.
The site router will also require a 13A power socket; therefore a Fibre service will require 2 x 13A sockets in
total.
Telco NTE
Space
Size (HxWxD approx.)
Mounting
Power
standard telephone socket + NTE below
40mm x 250mm x 250mm plus small external power unit
Rack mounting supplied
1 x 13A socket – 15W (approx.) plus a second socket for the site router
Site Routers
The design of the Convergence Group core network places requirements on the routers used to terminate
MPLS WAN connections.
These requirements are explained in detail in Section 7 Network Service Design and summarised below.

Support BGP routing protocol

Support SNMP Read-Only access for Convergence Group basic availability monitoring

Adhere to the maximum MTU size of 1500 bytes

Use agreed RFC1918 ‘private’ IP ranges for the WAN

Avoid specific Convergence Group Network Management Address ranges

Optional QoS – used agreed industry-standard Packet marking for QoS priorities
4. Resilience options
Overview
By combining two links from the options available in the Connection Types section; one as Primary and the
other as Backup a resilient service can be achieved, By using a separate router for each connection - to
avoid any single points of failure - a very high-availability resilient service can be achieved.
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The site routers can be configured with a standby router protocol which together with dynamic routing across
the dual Convergence links & core can provide an automatic backup for the site connectivity.
The dynamic protocols allow fail-over in the event of any single failure of a communications link or router to
be ‘transparent’ so that incoming and outgoing traffic are diverted over backup link with only a short
interruption to service.
Note that if the backup link has a lesser capacity – for example a 10M EFM service backing up a 100Mbps
fibre service – then during fail-over the service will have reduced throughput capacity.
The pairing of connection types can be chosen to match the sites technical and budgetary requirement from
the combinations listed below-
Fibre and Copper
Since copper is ubiquitous and reasonable level of throughput can be achieved at many sites either with
EFM or FTTC services, a cost-effective combination fibre primary & copper backup services is well suited to
many sites’ needs for connectivity resilience.
The preferred combinations are Fibre + EFM or Fibre + FTTC. A combination of Fibre + ADSL is technically
possible, but unless the fibre service is being used at low service bandwidths, ADSL will be inadequate as a
fail-over service.
Ideally fibre from an alternative carrier will be used for the primary connection in conjunction with an
Openreach copper connection for the backup. For sites where no alternative carrier fibre is available,
Openreach fibre copper will have to be used. The diagram shows both variants –
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Depending upon local circumstances the Openreach fibre and copper cables may have separate routing –
for example the fibre may be in underground duct and the copper on poles overhead - which achieves some
separation and helps to improve resilience.
Dual Fibre Ethernet – using different Carriers fibre
For Data Centres, larger sites and customer Server Rooms that are in locations where dual carrier fibre is
available it’s possible to achieve separation of the links over two different physical paths all the way from the
customer’s site to the core network:


Carrier A fibre through their local point-presence, across their national network to one NNI
Carrier B via the local exchange across a different national network to a different NNI
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Dual Fibre Ethernet – using Openreach ‘tails’
For some sites only Openreach fibre is available, in this case there are two options to achieve the most
feasible level of resilience -
Common Tail routes
A high degree of resilience can still be achieved by two different carriers for most of the link, but both
will have to use parallel Openreach tails between the exchange and the site.
However it’s important that all parties are aware that a common physical route will be used for the
‘last mile’ of the Primary and the Backup services. This means that physical damage to those ducts
or cables – for example being cut by street works – could affect both services.
Openreach Resilience
Alternatively - at a cost – Openreach can provide the backup circuit via a different route. This will
often require a new dig as well as additional cabling. The customer should be made aware that
“Excess Construction Charges” for new dig /ducts can be very high and the lead-times long
depending upon the location of the civil engineering dig as permissions may be required from
landlords, highway authorities, councils, etc.
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5. Multi- Site Wide Area Networks
The individual sites, each with their various connection types, which make up the customers wide area
network are connected within the Convergence Group core network to an MPLS VRF (Virtual Routing &
Forwarding domain) which is created for and specific to the customer. This industry-standard architecture
built on the carrier grade MPLS features provided by our Cisco ASR9000 series core routers enables service
providers like ourselves to logically and securely separate our customer’s traffic across our networks. This
technology also allows us, where required, to enable customer’s private WAN’s to communicate with other
network services such as:
Internet – via hosted firewalls

Data Centre & Cloud Service providers

SIP Trunk Voice over IP services

Payment Services providers
Wide area networks are by their very nature multi-site networks, often having sites in many locations across
the country or even internationally. In most cases these sites will already have some form of network
connectivity on which the day-to-day running of the organisation is likely to depend.
Therefore the work of implementing a new WAN and migrating the customers site to it, with the minimum of
disruption, possibly whilst other technical or organisational changes are also going on, needs very careful
preparation, planning, logistics and execution.
Customers with sizeable technical resources, either in-house or via technology partners, will only require
Convergence Group to provision the basic deployment of sites co-ordinated by the customers Project
Management team. The customer or their technology partner will be providing overall Project Management,
Convergence Group will only be responsible for Provisioning on the basis of customer provided site data.
For customers without access to this scale of resources, Convergence Group can additionally provide
Project Management and Network Engineering Consultancy professional services to complete a low-level
design and Project Plan for the migration.
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6. QoS – Class of Service
The MPLS WAN service provides a private MPLS network which supports 4 Classes of Service to enable
Priority to be given business critical WAN traffic such as Voice, Video or line-of-business applications.
These IP Quality of Service features are available for an additional charge on Fibre Ethernet leased line and
EFM ‘leased line equivalent’ connections.
QoS can be configured for all or any of the sites with suitable connections; each site can be configured for
QoS priorities as required – for example to support 

appropriate numbers of Concurrent Voice over IP call at each site
SIP Trunk traffic from an IP PBX at one of the customers sites to a SIP Trunk service
There is a one-off charge to implement a QoS configuration – based to the number sites involved. An annual
rental charge also applies to each site using QoS – according to the priority bandwidth & priority class
required.
Convergence Group will configure the core network to honour classified traffic from the router according to
the industry standard Data Packet Markings.
There are four Priority classes are available in addition to standard default Best Efforts traffic.
Priority Class
Max % of Service Bandwidth
DSCP Packet Marking
Voice
20%
EF
Gold
25%
CS4
Silver
30%
CS3
Bronze
20%
CS2
Best Efforts
Balance remaining
--
after priority classes
(i.e. min 5%)
Once configured, changes to QoS bandwidths are charged as per the standard Moves, Adds & Changes
one-off
Convergence Group will perform their own detailed service monitoring. In the event of any issues with QoS
performance which cannot be resolved in the initial interactions between the customer’s network
administrators and the Convergence Group Service Desk, the Convergence Group will require assistance in
enabling Convergence Group Monitoring on the site routers and other key devices for the affected sites.
Once configured, changes to QoS bandwidths are charged as per the standard Moves, Adds & Changes
one-off rates
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7. Network Service Design
Introduction & Responsibilities
For the “Managed” MPLS service the design of the WAN is the responsibility of Covergence Group
who will liaise with the customer throughout.
Although the customer specific WAN requirements may differ Convergence Group operates an
MPLS core network which has some pre-defined standards which mandate certain aspects of the
design or should be followed for best practice.
802.1Q Trunk Configuration
The Telco carrier bearer circuits will be configured with an 802.1Q VLAN Trunk to enable multiple
WAN services to be delivered to the site if required.
Convergence Group will allocate VLAN numbers in order to ensure VLAN’s are unique on the Core
Network.
MTU size
The Convergence Group core network is configured to support a maximum MTU (Maximum
Transmission Unit) size of 1500 bytes. Routers / switches will be configured to support –

MTU of 1500

DF (Do Not Fragment) bit cleared
Customer site LAN – supported options
Default deployment
The default router configuration for an MPLS WAN service is a router with single LAN Ethernet port
configured to support a single LAN having a single IP range.
There are also two other supported options for alternative deployments to meet more complex
customer requirements as the diagram below illustrates –
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Two LAN port option
The Two LAN Port option meets the common requirement to deliver both direct Public Internet
access to a site as well as a Private WAN connection – both services using the same physical
bearer circuit.
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For simplicity & security, this can be achieved using a WAN Router with Two LAN Ports: one port
configured to support the Public IP range, the other port configured to support a single Private LAN
IP range.
Trunk option
As an alternative to Routers with Two LAN ports and to support more complex LAN requirements
including multiple customer VLAN’s and multiple IP sub-nets the Convergence WAN Router can be
configured to present an 802.1Q VLAN Trunk.
The Trunk option supports up to a maximum of 5 VLAN’s or IP sub-nets.
Extra changes apply where more than 5 VLAN’s or IP sub-nets are required.
8. Quoting & PreSales support
To support customers in making the right choices amongst all the available service options to suit the needs
of their business, Convergence Group provide a number of resources; they include an account manager,
desk based sales support team and an Online Portal for circuit quotes.
The portal is part of Convergence Groups wide ranging investment program to drive efficiency and process
automation. The latest release of the portal adds a further set of carriers to the quoted connections options
and the roadmap for planned future portal development will continue the addition of more capabilities &
features. https://portal.convergencegroup.co.uk/
Please contact Convergence Group for a Portal Account if you’re not yet logging-on – just quote your
individual email address and once validated we’ll create a Portal Account and email the details to you.
Once logged on simply choose the relevant product option from the portal New Quote drop down, enter the
site postcode, confirm the address from the on-screen list then enter the type of connections required to get
a quote for all the relevant carrier services available at that site - in just a matter of moments.
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Managed MPLS WAN
One quote can include multiple connection types and the prices for all available options will be displayed
both on screen and also sent to your email address. Portal quotes can also be exported in Excel format for
your convenience.
9. Ordering & Provisioning
The account manager & desk based sales support team can provide quotations for Managed MPLS WAN
services. To order against a quote contact the team to obtain an order form - this should be completed with
the specifics for the customer’s site(s): managing contact details, Site contact details, Site access, Space &
Power, Floor/Room/Rack etc., and then signed by an authorised signatory and returned.
WAN deployment
For Managed WAN’s the customer or their technology partner will be providing overall Project Management,
the Convergence Group will only be responsible for Provisioning on the basis of customer provided site data.
The order form will be validated and when passed go to the Inventory & Provisioning teams who will create
CRM system entries, allocate appropriate VRF, VLAN, WAN & Management network IP addresses, place
orders for the carrier circuit and router hardware.
Carriers may survey the site before being able to confirm circuit completion lead-time. This information,
together with a date for a Convergence Installation Engineer site visit, will be sent by the Provisioning team
with regular updates to the customers managing contact.
When the carrier circuit is complete the Convergence Provisioning team will issue a Finished Order form by
the Convergence the Finance team will commence Billing.
Site Surveys & Circuit Installation Lead-times
With the very widespread use of modern communications technologies many existing commercial buildings
will have some fibre infrastructure present or at least have fibre nearby and the copper cables required for
PSTN & Broadband services are almost universal.
The Convergence Group have strong operational relationships with our Telco carrier partners, with regular
service & progress meetings between the operational teams on both sides. Convergence Group will always
use its best endeavours to progress orders smoothly and report any issues or delays if they arise.
The carriers, their local infrastructure and the local situations at or near customer’s sites do sometimes
present practical difficulties to completing the installation of a new service; prominent amongst these are
‘wayleave’ permissions from land owners & building lords to run new cables or undertake civil engineering
work to install ducts or other street works.
Once the Convergence Group Provisioning Team have all the necessary site details to place an fully detailed
order for a site, the carrier will undertake a survey to confirm the work needed to install the new service. This
survey should identify if the standard lead-time can be met or if any additional work is required that adds cost
and/or extends the lead-time. If wayleaves are required the lead-time can be open ended. When delays
cause an unacceptable impact to the solution the Convergence Group teams will work with the customer and
our supplier partners to escalate where possible and/or facilitate alternatives.
Connection Type
Standard Lead-time
Subject to Survey
Fibre Ethernet leased lines
Up to 65 working days
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EFM ‘leased line equivalent’
Up to 50 working days
FTTC Broadband
Up to 20 working days
ADSL Broadband
Up to 10 working days
PSTN Lines
Up to 20 working days
10. In-life Service and Support
Once the service is live any issues relating to carrier circuits or the MPLS core network will be supported by
the Convergence Group.
In the event of any service issues detected by the customer they should log a call with the Convergence
Group Service Desk who will investigate the problem.
The Convergence Group Service Desk team are the first point of contact for any MPLS WAN service issues
and can be contacted by email & phone 24x365.
The Convergence Group Service Desk team and the 2nd and 3rd line Support Engineers who back them up
are entirely UK based and all experienced networking specialists dedicated to supporting our WAN and
Internet services.
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11. Service Levels
Monitoring & Service Management
The Convergence Group core network supporting the customer MPLS connections is monitored for
availability and performance 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Where supported by a customer router SNMP
configuration the Convergence Group will perform basic availability monitoring. If SNMP access is not
provided availability must be measured by the customers monitoring systems as the Convergence Group will
not be able to performing their own availability monitoring. As a chargeable option the Convergence Group
can additionally configure remote monitoring of other WAN performance parameters via site routers.
Any lack of availability will be dealt with by the Service Desk team who will be the point of contact for any
service related issues.
Availability
The target availability for a service depends upon the type of connection and its resilience options and is
calculated over a 12 month period from the service start date. The target fix time also depends upon on the
type of connection.
Please note that, unlike Fibre & EFM services, Broadband services have limited SLA’s. The standard service
level for ADSL and FTTC Broadband services is 40 working hours. This can be reduced at extra costs to 20
working hours with Enhanced Care options on both the PSTN Line & the Broadband service.
Connection Type
Target Availability
Target Time to Restore
99.999%
6 Hours
99.9%
6 Hours
99.5%
6 Hours
Single Fibre Ethernet
99%
6 Hours
EFM
98%
8 Hours
FTTC
97%
ADSL
95%
Dual Fibre Ethernet
Dual Diverse Fibre
Primary & Backup
Dual Fibre Ethernet
One Carrier Fibre
Primary & Backup
Fibre Ethernet Primary
EFM / FTTC Backup
40 working hours
(20 working hours at extra cost)
40 working hours
(20 working hours at extra cost)
For dual connection resilient services, availability is measured with respect to the service as a whole – i.e. a
failure of the primary connection where service continued via the backup connection does not constitute
unavailability.
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Network Performance
The Convergence Group aim to deliver high performance for the MPLS WAN service. The service offers
service levels for the parameters of Latency, Jitter and Packet Loss.
In the event of any issues with QoS performance which cannot be resolved in the initial interactions between
the customer’s network administrators and the Convergence Group Service Desk.
Latency
The MPLS WAN service guarantees the average delay (latency) for IP packets to traverse the network
between the Routers at any two of the customer’s sites. Latency varies by connection type, being greater for
Broadband shared services than for dedicated services such as Fibre Ethernet leased lines. Lower levels of
latency are guaranteed for prioritised Class of Service traffic. Latency is measured between the interfaces of
the site routers and includes their access circuits and the core network. It is for UK mainland sites only and
does include any latency arising from applications or customer networks.
Type of Service
Average Latency – ms
Fibre Ethernet leased line – default
50ms
Broadband
85ms
Voice - EF service class
40ms
Gold, Silver Bronze – AF service classes
45ms
Jitter
Jitter is the variation in transit time of successive packets and too high a level of Jitter is disruptive to realtime service such as Voice over IP. The MPLS WAN service has a guarantee for the maximum level of jitter
for traffic in the Voice EF service class. The variation is measured between the Routers at any two of the
customer’s sites. It is measured between the interfaces of the site routers and includes their access circuits
and the core network. It is for UK mainland sites only and does include; any latency arising from applications
or customer networks and does not include traffic traversing the public Internet.
Type of Service
Average Jitter– ms
Voice - EF service class
3.5ms
Packet Loss
The MPLS WAN service guarantees the average success rate for IP packets traversing the network from the
Router at a customer’s site. This is measured by ICMP PING between the interface of the site router and a
core network router. The level of guarantee varies according to the service class of the prioritised Class of
Service traffic. It is for UK mainland sites only and does include any loss arising from applications or
customer networks.
Type of Service
Average Success Rate
Voice - EF service class
99.95%
Gold, Silver Bronze – AF service classes
99.9%
Best Efforts - default
99.8%
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12. Billing
When the carrier completes the installation of the circuit for a new service the Convergence Provisioning
team will issue a Finished Order form by the Convergence Provisioning team and the Finance team will
commence Billing. The Finished Order form will contain the technical details of the service and give the golive date which will be the anniversary date of the contract. The Convergence Group will Invoice the
customer on completion of a network site for the initial charges and for the first billing period. Invoices for
subsequent billing periods will be issued on the agreed billing frequency.
13. Optional Service Reporting
Service reporting is available where a customer allows suitable SNMP read-only access to site routers and
takes the optional remote monitoring.
14. Site Connection Upgrades
Copper services
New installations of Broadband services will either be ADSL2+ or, where available & if required, FFTC.
Currently FTTC is the highest Broadband speed service available and no further upgrade for this service is
possible. If FTTC becomes available to a site currently using ADSL, it can be upgraded to FTTC.
The FTTC service uses a different type of router to ADSL so a new router will be required in addition to a
one-off upgrade charge. There are two choices for the PSTN Line – either the existing PSTN line used for
ADSL can be converted to FTTC but this will require a period of disruption to service while the upgrade work
takes place, or the FTTC service can be installed on a new, or spare, PSTN line to minimise disruption.
Because EFM services use multiple copper pairs and connect to dedicated equipment in the Exchange, the
upgrade path is more complex and more costly, but in many cases a speed upgrade will be possible,
however there is a fixed maximum speed for an EFM service which depends upon sites location (because of
line length/quality).
Fibre services
New installations of Fibre Ethernet leased line services will typically be on 100Mbps carrier circuits, existing
installations may often use 10Mbps carrier circuits. The fibre used for leased line services is suitable – with
some equipment changes – to deliver 1Gbps or more. The service bandwidth can be ‘soft’ upgraded within
the capacity of the bearer circuit with little or no disruption to service. Major upgrades, say from 20Mbps to
150Mbps would require changes to the bearer circuit/equipment and probably also to the router and would
require some disruption to service. This could be minimised or eliminated either by a new provide, out-ofhours working or the permanent addition of a second circuit initially to facilitate the upgrade and long-term to
act as a backup connection.
Adding Resilience
The Convergence Group recommend the deployment of separate Routers for Primary and Backup
connections, this greatly simplifies the ‘retro-fitting’ of a Backup connection to an existing service. The same
approach is also useful if it is necessary to connect a new site with short lead-times: a Broadband connection
can be installed first to provide a modest working connection while waiting for a Fibre Ethernet leased line to
be installed. When the fibre service is ready, the Broadband connection can be re-configured to operate as a
backup for the fibre primary with minimal disruption.
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Upgrade Request Process
The availability of these upgrade options will vary depending upon the sites locations and will involve one-off
costs and changes to rental charges. In the first instance upgrade request should go to your Account
Manager or the sales Support team who will confirm availability, review any alternatives and provide pricing
& lead-time information. If the quotation is acceptable order should be placed via the Account Manager or
the sales Support team as usual.
15. Minor Service Changes
Change Requests must be addressed to the Convergence Group Service Desk via email
The Technical Support Team will evaluate the requested change, its impact on the customer’s service, the
CG network and the resource required to implement the change. If accepted the Service Desk will confirm
the timing of the change.
16. Planned Maintenance
The Convergence Group Service Desk may from time to time request changes that could affect the endcustomers service, for example for planned maintenance which may be required because of work by the
carriers. The Service Desk will inform the managing contact of this planned change and the proposed time.
Planned maintenance work will normally be performed between 00:00 – 06:00 and will be announced at
least 24 hours in advance.
17. Termination of Service
The quoted service prices will be based upon a particular length of term – typically 36 months for wide area
network services. A Notice Period and Cancellation Charges will apply to early termination of the service by
the customer.
Convergence Group Networks Ltd
One Cranmore
Cranmore Drive
Shirley, Solihull
West Midlands
B90 4RZ
T:
0845 270 2709
E:
info@convergencegroup.co.uk
W:
www.convergencegroup.co.uk
Registered in England & W ales: 3815471
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