Ask most business owners what happens if their internet goes down and you'll usually get some version of "the provider sorts it out quickly, that's what we're paying for." Then the connection actually drops, a call to support reveals the fix could take days, and a look at the contract shows the compensation on offer barely covers a cup of coffee. The gap between what people assume their broadband contract guarantees and what it actually says in the small print is where a lot of Greater Manchester businesses get caught out.
Service level agreements are written by lawyers to protect the provider first. That doesn't mean they're useless, but it does mean you need to read them with a clear idea of what the numbers actually mean before you rely on them.
What "guaranteed uptime" really means
A provider advertising 99.9% uptime sounds reassuring, until you work out what that figure allows. 99.9% uptime still permits around 8.7 hours of downtime over a year. 99.5% allows roughly 43 hours. These are annual or monthly averages, not a promise that you'll never lose connection during your busiest trading day.
It's also worth checking how uptime is measured. Some SLAs measure availability at the exchange or the provider's network edge, not at your premises. If the fault is in the "last mile" cabling into your building, it may not count against the provider's uptime figure at all, even though you're the one sitting without internet.
Fix times: standard broadband vs leased lines
This is where the real difference between connection types shows up, and it's rarely explained clearly at the point of sale.
- Standard business broadband (FTTC/FTTP, no SLA add-on): typically a "best efforts" fix, often quoted as up to 2 to 5 working days, with no contractual penalty if the provider misses it.
- Business broadband with an enhanced care level: usually next business day, sometimes with a modest service credit if that's missed.
- Leased lines: genuinely contracted fix times, commonly a 5 or 6 hour repair guarantee backed by financial penalties if the provider fails to hit it.
The difference matters because a standard connection with no enhanced SLA can leave you without internet, phones and card payments for several working days, and the provider has met its contractual obligations the entire time.
What compensation you're actually entitled to
When a connection does go down, compensation is almost always a service credit, not a cash refund, and it's calculated against the cost of the line itself, not your lost business. A connection costing £35 a month that's down for two days might net you a credit of a few pounds. It will not cover lost sales, idle staff, or the awkward conversation with a customer who couldn't reach you.
Most SLAs also build in exclusions worth checking before you need them:
- Scheduled maintenance windows, which don't count as downtime even if they affect your trading hours.
- Faults caused by your own equipment, router, or internal cabling.
- A claims process you have to initiate yourself, usually within a set number of days, rather than a credit applied automatically.
If nobody in your business is tracking outages and raising claims, that compensation simply goes unclaimed.
Questions to ask before you sign or renew
Before renewing or switching connectivity provider, it's worth getting straight answers to a short list of questions: What is the actual fix time guarantee, in hours, not "working days"? Is that guarantee backed by a financial penalty, or is it just a target? Where is uptime measured, and does that include the cabling into your building? What exactly do you need to do, and by when, to claim compensation if something goes wrong?
If a provider can't answer these clearly, that tells you something useful on its own.
Matching the connection to the risk
None of this means every business needs a leased line. A small office that can work from mobile data for a day if broadband drops has a different risk profile to a retail business that can't take card payments without internet. The right approach is matching the SLA and the connection type to what downtime actually costs you, rather than assuming the cheapest contract and the most resilient one offer similar protection.
At Valetech Solutions we review connectivity contracts for SMEs across Greater Manchester, explain what the SLA actually covers in plain terms, and help you choose between standard broadband, enhanced care, or a leased line based on what downtime would genuinely cost your business. If you're not sure what your current contract protects you against, get in touch with Valetech Solutions.