IntelePeer Voice Services User Guide

IntelePeer provides IBM the voice services that support the telephony functionality of the IBM Watson offering pursuant to a services agreement, which outlines certain provisioning and use restrictions.  This IntelePeer Voice Services User Guide outlines for IBM Watson customers what to expect of the telephony functionality powered by IntelePeer.  Additional details and charges are set out in your Agreement or Statement of Work with IBM.

1. Overview

The telephony functionality available to customers using IBM Watson includes the ability to make or receive telephony calls from third parties via the IBM Watson platform, including calls into a toll-free number.  These calls are similar to traditional telephony but have certain restrictions and limitations IBM customers should be aware of when using the functionality.

2. Restrictions on Usage
  1. Where commercially available, IBM Watson customers may obtain domestic telephone numbers via IntelePeer or may port telephone numbers from their existing service provider.  The timing and portability of telephone numbers from the existing service provider of the IBM Watson customer depends entirely on the releasing provider’s policies and practices.
  2. The telephony functionality available through IBM Watson does not include any emergency service functionality or features to support 911 calls. 
  3. To protect the calling traffic of all its customers and their customers, IntelePeer reserves the right to decide when to discontinue service to any international routes with a high risk of fraud, and requires additional authorizations to enable calling to certain countries with an extraordinarily high risk of fraudulent activity, while not supporting calls to or from any embargoed countries under any circumstances.
  4. IBM Customers can only receive toll-free calls from within the United States.
  5. Calling traffic which appears to be atypical of an enterprise business may be subject to additional charges (as set forth below) or prohibited altogether, without additional notice.  Prohibited uses include without limitation:  (i) connecting to any device, computer or telephone system, which can either (a) place calls in an automated fashion (such as any predictive dialer, auto-dialer or robodialer), or (b) makes routing choices based on the cost of a call (such as a least cost routing engine); or (ii) traffic patterns which fail to conform either on a monthly average basis with the surcharge thresholds (as set forth below), or to a natural distribution across U.S. Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC), Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC), Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) and wireless destinations or origination points.
  6. IBM Watson customers may configure incoming calls to transfer to any on-net or off-net telephone number, including without limitation to another office location of the IBM Watson customer, an affiliated entity or an independent third party, utilizing the telephony functionality.  Any such transfer will be unattended, which means the call will attempt to connect to the referred destination without any assurance or acknowledgement of call set-up for the transferred call.
3. Explanation of Charges
  1. The customer can configure IBM Watson to send and receive calls over the platform, but should note that the charges associated with those calls may vary by jurisdiction.  Customer may be conversing with another party that is:
    1. Local:  Within the same local calling area,
    2. Long Distance: Elsewhere in the United States or
    3. International:  Outside of the United States
  2. The rates may differ for Local, Long Distance and International, based on the varying underlying costs, as well as the increments in which charges are calculated.  In the United States and Canada, calls are charged on six (6) second minimums with six (6) second increments, but in Mexico rates are assessed on sixty (60) second minimums with sixty (60) second increments, and to destinations everywhere else in the world supported by IntelePeer thirty (30) second minimums with six (6) second increments.
  3. Charges for this telephony functionality are based on the anticipated usage of a typical enterprise business including contact center usage. IBM Watson customer understands that calls made within a given billing cycle must not fall within one or more of the following conditions:
    1. IBM Watson customer will be assessed a surcharge per call, without additional notice, for calls exceeding thresholds sent by the IBM Watson customer during that billing cycle as described below:
      1. The total minutes during the billing cycle divided by the total completed calls for the billing cycle or Average Length of Call (“ALOC”), must not drop below one (1) minute; 
      2. The total completed calls during the billing cycle divided by the total call attempts, or Answer Seizure Ratio (“ASR”), for the billing cycle not resulting from any action by IntelePeer or IBM, must not drop below sixty-five percent (65%); or 
      3. The number of completed calls during any billing cycle, which are six (6) seconds or less in duration, must not exceed more than twenty percent (20%) of total calls made during the billing cycle.
    2. If toll free calls for IBM Watson customers made within a given billing cycle meet any of the following criteria, customer will be assessed surcharges per call, without additional notice as follows:
      1. If 10% or more of the Customer’s calls are not able to be completed, a per call surcharge may be imposed.
      2. If 10% or more of the Customer’s calls are equal to or less than six (6) seconds, a per call surcharge may be imposed.
      3. Customer agrees to assume sole responsibility for all payphone surcharges incurred in use of these Services.
  4. When IBM Watson customer initiates call transfers, IBM will calculate the duration of inbound voice traffic until the transfer of the call completes.  Upon transfer of the call, usage for a new call will begin to accrue separately for: (a) the originating portion of the call for inbound voice traffic, along with the duration for the outbound voice traffic for the terminating portion of the call being transferred.