They "claim" Enterprise has a SLA....but that is total and utter BS. This is just a scam to charge business more.
This is also why Natting has become an issue all of a sudden where businesses that still has "older" products, but need Static IP, are now forced to change to business solutions.
Not necessarily , SLAs are enforceable and we generally see SLA delivery on point with the larger industry players. When targets are missed, most SLAs are punitive. If we escalated a ticket to DFA for example, at any time of the day or night, it's treated with the same priority and attended to- that's a SLA. I've been out to a SLA call at 2am for DFA to float a new fibre and splice it, for a single enterprise client. FTTH FNOs will let this kind of break sit until at least the next morning, if not a day or so while teams are arranged. When a business's ability to operate, revenue and productivity are based on guarantees of connectivity; then it makes sense to pay for this level of support.
Residential fibre is "best effort" and broadband (shared, at some point). While some FTTH FNOs have upped their maintenance and service game and do operate really well (sometimes at FTTB service levels) - best effort is just that, and there is no
guarantee that your service will be restored timeously - especially in the case of a major outage. Another example is packet loss, route backhauls and more; these are all controlled by the FNO and usually "best effort." Just look through this forum to see instances where issues have taken days to resolve across many FNOs. Most FTTH FNOs don't have 24/7 support desks, so after hours and weekend support is hit and miss email support.
Fundamentally, it costs big money to deliver internet. The FTTH revolution has been great and South African homes really do benefit from one of the highest standards of FTTH internet quality in the world at good prices; so it's easy to confuse broadband and DIA. Homes benefit from economies of scale; but the infrastructure, support and maintenance cost money, especially when built specifically for business and enterprise. Enterprise fibre (DIA) has some distinct differences:
- Generally carry SLAs, with MTTR (mean time to repair) and punitive clauses
- Specific use case: L2/L3 services, Jumbo frames, EVPN underlays, multiple classes of service, dedicated VLANs for VoIP and other RT services, 24/7 link monitoring, Multiple metro (backhaul from the POP) options, diversity (multi routes), redundancy (backups)
- Higher build costs which need to be re-covered over shorter timeframes (FTTH FNOs plan a GPON (mostly) point dedicated to x number of homes in an area on scales of 10-25 years, FTTB is 2-5 years / build).
- All that a FTTH installer needs to do is take a drop cable, plug/splice it in at one of these points and voila, the entire network is complete into your home. Provision and ont and you're good to go. There are spliters and natural contention as mentioned above.
- FTTB build plans usually involve getting a fibre pair from the client back to the local POP - this includes splicing from the client's server room, through every manhole until the POP. That's why you see DFA/Openserve/Liquid teams working on manholes all the time. Which means lower light loss, complete visibility on the full circuit, the ability to manage the line from POP to client in its entirety as well as the ability to deliver specific services to that client to suit their requirements.
It all comes down to which tool is best for the job. Broadband is one of those tools- while it may look like a decent solution; it may not tick all the boxes needed to keep a business running correctly.
