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Blessed are the Geeks, for they shall internet the earth |
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Telecom Billing Woes: Are billing mistakes costing your company $ -- You can bet on it! Dell Crill 
I started overhauling our company’s telecom and leased data services and stumbled into a massive gold mine of savings. I first looked at how we were using the services and what types of services would best suite our means for the result we were trying to obtain. I found many services ordered many years prior that were being billed at much higher rates than were obtainable for better services today. Since most of the commitment contracts were out of date, it left me free to start shopping around for less expensive services with more flexibility. I then enlisted the help of our IS department and our IS Director / Network Administrator who helped me identify the services being used and the locations they belonged to. As I started looking further into our vast array of billed lease lines I found circuits and telephone numbers that were no longer being used and had not been used for many months, in some cases over a year. I found one instance where the phone company had upgraded a service from 56k dialup ISDN to a full T-1 private line and never turned down the old circuit. The phone company was responsible for the old circuit to be shut down since it was an administrative upgrade solicited by them. The change was never forwarded to the billing department. We continued to be charged $451.00 per month for months to come. I immediately contacted the billing department of the major carrier and had these services turned off. After our first month of combing the phone bills I managed to disconnect many services and save our company over $2,000.00 per month in charges we were not using at all. Then I proceeded to look at down sizing our services and consolidating phone and data networks. Though it has been an on going project for many months we will start to realize the savings and these numbers could go as high as $60K the first year. I will say though, you must be persistent with the phone company or they will let your credit requests and disconnection notices go on for months without perseverance. Remember, your asking them to turn off services or change services that were making them large amounts of revenue with out having to provide any of there systems resources. This makes them uneasy and hard to work with. You will need to find a trustworthy phone company representative whom can help you with your changes and process your requests for new services. Remember, these sales people work on commission so have a game plan and a direction for your company before they get the chance to talk you into services you don’t need. Hire a consultant if necessary, it will be well worth it in the end. They have experience dealing with the pushy phone company sales staff and can bring back to you only what your company requires. In the nut shell, most large companies can save
enough on their telecom and data bills to pay for a full time on staff
Engineer. This person will prove to be very valuable to the firm, not only
as a telecom billing specialist but also an in house consultant repair
technician and network engineer. However, the person you find to fill this
role must have several years experience in the telecom industry and have
dealt with major phone companies in the past. They should also have above
basic knowledge of LAN, WAN and Networking criteria. They must also be very
familiar with today’s T-1, T-3, IPVPN, DSL and other high speed network
and telecom medium. The bottom line here is to keep all your communication
costs in line and continue to monitor them monthly for changes. I urge our
readers to take a few hours out of there day to really look over their
telecom bills and contracts and see if there is room for improvement? I bet
you can find a billing mistake right away! If you have any questions, or need help in determining your company's billing issues contact Dell Crill at DellCrill@thenetworkadministrator.com
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As
a Network Administrator many of you are wearing two hats these days. You are
not only responsible for the Data, but the Telecom side of the house as
well. In this time of corporate cut backs and IT/ IS department downsizing
it’s a real advantage to find an area in the company where you have the
power to save them money instead of spending it. Your company’s CEO/CFO
will smile with joy when you walk into him or her and confess that you just
saved the company thousands per month on their phone bill.