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To build a profitable business in today`s competitive environment, service providers (SPs) face many challenges. They must protect their substantial investment in the network infrastructure while they reduce operating costs. Additionally, SPs must generate a solid return on that investment by attracting a growing base of loyal subscribers, and by bringing innovative new services to market quickly.
As the global leader in Internet solutions, Cisco Systems offers a comprehensive suite of services to help SPs meet these challenges. The Cisco SP service suite is designed to protect your investment through delivery of ongoing software updates and upgrades that extends product life. You can use these same services and IOS software upgrades to develop new services that differentiate them from competitors and produce incremental revenue. The Cisco SP service suite also helps you to offer the right network availability that your customer`s demand.
Finally, the Cisco SP service suite eliminates the complexity, frustration and high costs frequently associated with multiple-vendor support. You can support your local or wide-area Cisco network with world-class Cisco services — end-to-end.
The Cisco SP maintenance service suite is designed to give you the flexibility to select a program that will meet your requirements and budget. To get the maximum benefit from a Cisco maintenance solution, it`s best to purchase SP Base plus one or more of the hardware support options that suit your service-level needs. For those SPs who also maintain customer premises equipment (CPE), Cisco also offers a separate CPE support package.
For complete support, SP Base should be supplemented with the hardware option appropriate to the needs of your network segment. For example, to ensure the high availability that is mission critical to the network backbone, most SPs maintain an inventory of spare parts for quick hot-swapping, or replacement, of failed parts without disruption of network availability. The Cisco advanced hardware replacement and onsite hardware services are designed to keep this crucial inventory intact at all times. Remote distribution/point of presence (POP) sites also need service and support. It may be more cost-effective to offload this responsibility to a Cisco-dispatched onsite maintenance engineer, who can respond within four hours or by the next business day (NBD), as needed. There is also a return-for-replacement option to allow non-critical devices to be replaced cost effectively.
Protect infrastructure investment through extended product life
Increase revenue and profit by delivering new services
Maximize network reliability and availability
Build customer satisfaction and loyalty
SP Base is the foundation of Cisco Maintenance Services and includes access to the award-winning Cisco Connection Online (CCO) web site, Technical Assistance Center (TAC), and Cisco IOS software updates and enhancements — 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. CCO access puts a substantial range of electronic problem-resolution tools, information, and services at your fingertips, including:
New product information — the latest literature about Cisco products and how to use them to build end-to-end solutions
Bug Toolkit — immediate notification of new bugs, with work-arounds for problem avoidance
Software Library — Cisco IOS software updates that can be downloaded to take advantage of new features and enhancements to current functionality
Whenever direct telephone contact is preferred, more than 2000 of the world`s top development engineers stand ready to provide expert assistance. This service is available worldwide in more than 144 languages for global support.
Cisco IOS software planner — helps you determine which software updates are most appropriate for you, and provides tips on usage
Open Forum — enables you to go online to get timely answers to common technical questions from Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts (CCIEs)
Stack Decoder — a stack trace that improves problem resolution by identifying the root cause for network outages
Troubleshooting Assistant — a feature that resolves comment configuration and performance issues involving Cisco products
Advanced Hardware Replacement offers SPs the flexibility to cover their equipment with an advanced hardware replacement service. For SPs needing onsite hardware maintenance services, Cisco offers SP Onsite. Both SP Advanced Hardware Replacement and SP Onsite come with a full year of advance replacement coverage. Replacement parts are shipped in as little as four hours to replenish hot-spare inventories. For SPs who have support staff available to replace parts, SP Advanced Hardware Replacement is the right solution. For SPs with limited support staff, SP Onsite offers an alternative to utilizing internal resources. Offered in conjunction with SP Base, SP Advanced Hardware Replacement and SP Onsite offer three levels of Advanced Hardware Replacement or SP Onsite options (please see the following Entitlements section, for details on additional response times).
Advance replacement of hardware (three delivery options are available, depending on response time requirements — see below for details)
For SP Onsite customers, Cisco provides field engineers onsite to install Advanced Replacement hardware parts. Over 11,000 field engineers are located throughout 100 countries to supply these services. Response times are based on the delivery option selected.
Advanced Hardware Replacement
Delivery of hardware replacement parts the next business day, provided that the request is received before 3:00 p.m. local time — Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
SP Onsite
Onsite Support with next business day response — Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Advanced Hardware Replacement
Delivery of hardware replacement parts within fours hours — Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
SP Onsite
Onsite support within four hours — Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Advanced Hardware Replacement
Delivery of hardware replacement parts within four hours — 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
SP Onsite
Onsite support within four hours — 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
For spare replenishment, Cisco offers a Return for Replacement service option. Return for Replacement provides for shipment of parts from the Cisco factory in San Jose, California within 10 business days.
Offered in conjunction with SP Base, Return for Replacement offers all the services of SP Base, plus return for replacement.
Cisco offers a packaged support program to cover equipment that resides at the SP`s customer premises.
As a comprehensive solution, the program meets the essential needs of CPE support by combining software update, CCO and TAC access features with a cost-effective level of hardware support that you can affordably extend to your customers.
CCO Web site, 24 hours a day, seven days a week
Cisco IOS software upgrades and updates, 24 hours a day, seven days a week
Return for Replacement hardware support
Service Provider Maintenance support is available globally.
Technical assistance is a key component of any network support program. As the importance of the network grows, so does the need for swift access to knowledgeable networking personnel. For this reason, Cisco has developed a specialized Technical Assistance Center (TAC) designed to handle the pressing needs of service providers: the SP TAC. SPs utilizing the Cisco Network Supported Accounts (NSA) or ISP Expert Team services, and have a Total Support Relationship (TSR) level relationship are eligible for SP TAC services.
The Cisco SP TAC provides access to a team of networking experts dedicated to responding to calls from SPs and represents the commitment to the SP`s network. The Cisco TAC is no longer simply a call center, it is your partner for the success of your network. TSR customers with access to the SP TAC program will be given a toll-free number exclusive to the SP TAC. Moreover, state-of-the-art CTI technology will gather all pertinent background information on the SP`s networking environment and alert the dedicated team of Cisco customer service representatives of the caller`s company identity. As a result, improved response time is promoted by virtually eliminating the entitlement process. SP TAC not only offers the highest touch technical assistance available, it enables the Cisco support engineers to function as a virtual extension of an SP`s own networking staff to resolve issues faster. With this type of open communication and collaboration, SPs are able to manage many of their risks proactively, avoiding potentially costly issues in the future.
Carrier-class support organization dedicated exclusively to SPs
TAC Relationship Manager (TAC-RM) dedicated to SP customer
Special toll free number and unique PIN number
Dedicated teams of senior-level engineers
Access to engineers knowledgeable about the customer`s network
Technical assistance 24 hours a day, seven days a week
Custom call reporting and call trend analysis
Availability subject to qualification
Highest-touch technical assistance available in the industry
Dedicated engineering professionals familiar with customer`s network
Enhanced peer-to-peer relationships
Virtually eliminates the entitlement process
Provides opportunities for ad hoc mentoring
Enables SP TAC engineers to act as a virtual extension of the SP`s staff