please answer this question from a legal perspective. it was written by the party saying that 99.9% means that

Question

Our company has a service contract for network availabiity. The
service level is for a “minimum average of 99.9%“. The calculated
measurement last month(using very precise and unrounded information)
was 99.8614%.

The vendor maintains that the 99.8614% should be "rounded-up" to conform
with the significant digits in the contract (nn.n%) and therfore the
service level was achieved. Unfortunately, the contract did not
address rounding, calculation precision, or significant digits.

Our position is that the word “minimum“ implies a floor threshold -
where the measurement is either below it or above(equal). In this
situation, 99.8614% is below the 99.9% floor.

Answer 1

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

Answer 2

I agree with you. 99.9% is the floor. if you were considering rounding, it would read into the contract language that was not explicitly there. I would advocate that 99.9% requires being within a tolerance of .1, anything greater than that is in breach of the express terms of the contract.

To flesh out that argument a little more, you could say that, if the vendor wanted to consider rounding, they should have explicitly inserted that condition into the contract, then you would have had a tolerance of 99.85555 repeating.

Further it may be important to know who drafted the contract, generally ambiguities in the language fall in favor to the non drafting party. If the vendor drafted the agreement, then you are in a better position.

Answer 3

The issue on hand is the amount of downtime (not the amount of uptime). The contract guarantees 0.1% or less downtime (without rounding).

They claim rounding is allowed and the measured 0.1496% should be rounded down to 0.1%. Note that the measured amount of downtime is nearly 50% more than contractually agreed (without rounding), nearly 50% is substantial.

Significant digits are determined by (inter alia) on the amounts of digits used to measure. If you measure to 0.0001% precise then a difference of 0.04% is substantial.

Answer 4

In math, it is proper to round off to the number of significant digits. In this example 99.8614% = 99.9%
Anything over 99.8501% is equal to 99.9% if there is one significant digit after the decimal.
They met their obligation.

Answer 5

The judge won't care about the math, but will be interested in the "reasonableness" of the claim. Read The Merchant of Venice.

Answer 6

If they guaranteed 100% availability (foolish, yes) but only provided 99.6% availability, would you let them round up?
They fell below the minimum. Take them to court.

Answer 7

SAY WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!