Cader NetworksWhat an SLA is actually promising
A service level agreement is a specific, contractual promise about how a provider will respond when something goes wrong, not a general assurance that things will not go wrong. The two parts that matter most are response time and fix time.
Response time
How quickly a fault gets acknowledged and worked on after you report it. This is often quoted in hours, and can vary a lot between a basic package and a premium care tier.
Fix time (or "time to restore")
How long the provider commits to actually resolving the fault, not just acknowledging it. This is the number that matters most in practice, and it is also the one most likely to be vague or absent on a cheaper package.
Service credits
Where a genuine SLA is breached, most providers offer service credits, a reduction on your bill, as compensation. It is worth checking exactly how these are calculated and claimed, since some providers make the process onerous enough that few customers actually bother.
What a basic broadband package usually does not include
Standard consumer-grade broadband, even when sold to a business, typically comes with a best-effort fix time and no formal service credits at all. This is fine for many small businesses, but worth knowing rather than assuming.
Questions worth asking any provider
- What is the guaranteed fix time, not just the response time, and does it apply around the clock or only during working hours?
- Are service credits automatic, or do I have to notice the breach and claim them myself?
- Does the SLA apply to the whole connection, or only specific fault types?
- What happens if the fault is with the underlying network rather than anything the provider directly controls?
How SLAs work in practice: best-effort, Enhanced Care and Critical Care
Standard business broadband in the UK comes on Openreach Care Level 1 (CL1). This gives a target fix time of within 2 working days of the fault being reported, Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays. There is no engineer dispatch guarantee and no service credits if the target is missed. In practice, many faults clear faster, but two working days is the contractual commitment.
Enhanced Care (Openreach CL2) changes that. It costs £14.99/month +VAT and gives a target fix by end of the next working day, Monday to Saturday, with cover until 8pm. Your fault is prioritised in the queue, fix times are tracked, and if the target is missed, service credits apply. It is suited to businesses where broadband matters but a day of downtime, while costly, is survivable.
Critical Care goes further. At £24.99/month +VAT, it carries a four-hour target fix time with engineer dispatch where needed. If your business genuinely cannot operate without its broadband connection, card payments, cloud-based systems, VoIP, remote monitoring, this is the tier that provides a meaningful safety net. The four-hour clock starts from the moment the fault is logged, not from the next morning.
How fault reporting works matters as much as the SLA itself. Report a fault clearly and early, with a description of symptoms and what you have already checked, and we can start working on it immediately. Faults that arrive vaguely described or late in the day take longer to clear, regardless of the care tier. If a fault is running longer than the target fix time, contact us directly. We will tell you what is happening and what the realistic timeline looks like.
For businesses where downtime is genuinely expensive, an SLA is not just about getting the problem fixed faster. It is also about knowing what to expect, being able to plan around a worst-case window, and having a provider who is accountable to a specific commitment rather than a general intention.