Service-level agreements (SLAs) have been part of the industry for quite some time now. Particularly useful for cloud-based operations and the like, an SLA simply guarantees a certain level of service, whether measured in availability, in uptime, or something similar. But SLAs commonly aren't seen in connection with voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services, at least beyond a limited level, because there's so much that can go wrong that often isn't even the provider's fault. 8x8 (News - Alert), meanwhile, is going for the brass ring and bringing out the first such SLA for VoIP calling, offering a guarantee of the best levels of service availability and voice quality alike.

When SLAs come into play for a VoIP service—and such are seen, according to reports—such are most commonly limited to the service provider's network only, as opposed to the underlying connection as well. But 8x8's version, meanwhile, is something of a first in that it completely guarantees uptime on an end-to-end basis, as well as call quality and reliability, regardless of the network that the customer ultimately uses. Customers can use public Internet, multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) networks, or even a hybrid of the two, and still fall under 8x8's SLA.

What's more, 8x8 is even making its guarantees on a pretty strong scale besides. Not only does the SLA in question call for four-nines uptime, or 99.99 percent, but it also calls for a Mean Opinion Score (MOS) of 3.0 for at least 98 percent of all calls on the network. That even includes calls that use compressed codecs, like G.729a, that commonly don't have the kind of quality that others do even when network conditions aren't an issue.

Naturally, there are those asking how such a thing can even be possible in the first place without destroying a company under the weight of the SLA claims. That's a point 8x8's senior vice president of network operations and support, Mehdi Salour (News - Alert), was ready to address with some remarks: “8x8 has invested significant engineering and operations resources to perfect the delivery of VoIP over the public Internet. The technologies we have invented and the relentless effort we have made to measure availability and service quality for every call have given us the data we need to provide our customers with this new service level agreement.”

What's more, 8x8 has been reportedly hard at work on helping to smooth out the rough spots in consumer networks that might hamper such access and make its new SLA a terrible idea. For instance, the company's new Virtual Office Analytics “Service Quality” solution allows companies to view individual calls and the like to help track down network issues that might have an effect on call quality. That combination of factors does give a lot of credence to 8x8's plan to offer such a high degree of coverage, so anyone who thinks this a terrible idea may simply be overreacting.

Of course, only time will tell just how far this goes, and if 8x8 can ultimately keep up the service it promises at the level it promises. But there's no doubt that this is a very big move, and if it can actually back it up, then a lot more companies will likely be looking in 8x8's direction when planning to make moves in communications services.