Sprint guarantees firewall services
In a move to sweeten its Internet services, the telco rolls out security performance guarantees for its suite of managed firewall offerings.
Citing figures from a Forrester Research study that estimates that about $17 million in goods and services are being exchanged over the Internet this year, Sprint said businesses are demanding that Internet service providers deliver more robust Internet security packages.
To meet that need Sprint said it will provide 100-percent managed firewall system availability, along with a promise to provide onsite maintenance within four hours after a problem has been detected. The telecommunications giant also pledges that it will begin tackling all its managed firewall services customers' requests by the beginning of the next business day.
Sprint today also announced a new level of managed firewall services designed for customers who require the essential elements of an Internet security service at a low cost. The Sprint Managed Firewall Service Level I is now called Level II and is a more robust, enterprise-wide security package.
When responding to critical events, such as firewall hardware or software failures and firewall hacking hits, Sprint also guarantees a two-hour proactive notification for its first Level I service and 30-minute notification for Level II customers.
Finally, Sprint will provide, within the first ten business days of each month, performance and configuration change reports, so customers can see the activity occurring within their Internet firewalls.
All of today's security offerings are supported with up to a 25-percent money-back guarantee for Level I customers and up to 50 percent money back guarantee for Level I customers.
Both managed firewall services support a customer's Internet, intranet, and extranet VPN (virtual private network) applications and allow a customer to explore and choose from many of the industry's leading firewall software packages including Axent Raptor, and Check Point firewalls.
The freedom to choose between two leading firewall software providers makes sense, said Forrester analyst Ted Julian. "It makes good sense to use these because business are going to be looking for service providers to offer security that will work well with, or is the same as, their internal security. Check Point, for instance, is one of the most popular products out there."