How to Cut the High Costs of International Roaming

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Admin1

Cell Phone International RoamingMaintaining communication while doing business internationally is vital, but the cost of using voice and data services on your phone while outside the U.S. can be astronomical. Tales abound of travelers returning from overseas, or even just from a trip “next door” to Canada or Mexico, to find a bill from their cell-phone carrier exceeding $1,000 for a fairly modest amount of usage, or from background data usage that the phone’s owner didn’t even realize was taking place. With the help of a telecom consultant, a company can find the most economical and efficient way for employees traveling abroad to access voice and data services if necessary, and to avoid unnecessary and unwanted or “accidental” charges. This knowledge should be incorporated into an enterprise-wide policy on international telecommunications usage that is distributed to all employees who travel outside the U.S. Compliance can be monitored through active telecom management practices such as regular invoice reviews and phone bill audits.

Here are some suggested tips on how to reduce the cost of using a cell phone or smartphone while traveling internationally:

  • Consider signing up for your carrier’s international calling plan or international data roaming plan. For a monthly fee, these plans give you access to a tier of pricing that is lower than the usual rates for some (but probably not all) countries. While the cost per minute or megabyte is still relatively high with these plans, they can provide significant savings.
  • A more sophisticated solution is to change your phone’s SIM card while traveling abroad. A phone’s SIM card contains identifiers unique to your phone that, among other things, give information specifying your “home” network in the U.S. Voice and data transmissions are always routed through your domestic home network, which is why you incur international roaming fees when you take your phone out of the country. Purchasing a SIM card locally essentially makes you part of the local network, and buying one in each country you visit is still much cheaper than paying international voice roaming charges. Prepaid SIM cards can also be obtained in the U.S. before departure.
  • Disable data roaming using your phone’s menu before departure re-enable only when necessary. Instead of using your carrier’s data network (and incurring exorbitant charges) you can use Wi-Fi to access the internet. Keep in mind, however, that in some locations free Wi-Fi may not be as readily available as you’re used to back home.
  • Keeping a smartphone in “airplane mode” (or “offline mode”) prevents a network connection from being established and data charges from being incurred, while still allowing all non-network-based applications to be used. This can prevent your device from receiving automatic updates or synchronization, but note that calling, texting and e-mailing are not possible while in this mode. Alternatively, automatic synch and update functions can be disabled through the phone’s menu.

With extensive telecom consulting experience dating back to 1985, Telanalysis knows how to identify current telecom overspending and reduce future telecom costs for your business or organization. We also have the expertise to pursue telecom billing disputes and negotiate contracts with telecom carriers nationwide. Call Telanalysis today for a free consultation at 866-300-6999.

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AT&T Ends Pursuit of T-Mobile USA

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Admin1

AT&T T-Mobile MergerAT&T’s nine-month quest to acquire T-Mobile USA from its German parent company, Deutsche Telekom AG, ended with an official announcement from the American telecom and technology giant on Monday, December 19.  The two telcos announced a merger plan in March that would have resulted in AT&T becoming the largest wireless company in the United States, ahead of the current number-one, Verizon.

The deal was opposed by the U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Communications Commission and several state attorneys general, as well as by AT&T’s competitors in the wireless telecom market, most notably Sprint.  The Justice Department filed a suit in August to block the merger on anti-competitive grounds, and the FCC followed with a finding that it would be contrary to consumer interests.  Sprint filed a separate lawsuit of its own.

On its website, AT&T said it had ended its acquisition bid for T-Mobile in agreement with Deutsche Telekom “after a thorough review of options.” However, AT&T is contractually obligated to pay a $4 billion breakup fee to Deutsche Telekom. In an earlier sign to many telecom consultants and analysts then that the deal was in serious trouble, AT&T took an accounting charge to cover the breakup fee three weeks ago. The merger would have been worth an estimated $39 billion.

AT&T had said that it needed to acquire T-Mobile in order to avert a crisis in the amount of available wireless spectrum in the United States, especially as it and other wireless carriers expand services and deploy 4G capabilities. “The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage,” AT&T said in a press release on its website. “In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.” In the wake of the failed deal, AT&T called for expedited approval by the FCC of its pending purchase of unused spectrum owned by Qualcomm. AT&T also said it will enter into a “mutually beneficial” roaming agreement with Deutsche Telekom.

Critics have said that in attempting to snap up T-Mobile, AT&T was simply trying to eliminate an agile competitor that could undercut it on price for some wireless services and equipment. They pointed to documents released to the FCC by AT&T itself that suggested that AT&T’s spectrum problems are of its own making and could be eased simply through better management of telecom services it currently offers.

T-Mobile is the country’s fourth-largest wireless provider, but Deutsche Telekom had been looking to unload it for some time because of worrisome sales trends, especially following the release of the latest iPhones.

With the ongoing changes in the wireless market and in the world of telecommunications generally, you need an expert telecom billing consultant to help you find the best deals for your organization. Telanalysis can perform a thorough phone bill audit for your company at no risk and with no upfront cost, and we offer comprehensive phone bill management services to insure that you’re making the most of your telecom dollars. Call us for a free consultation at 866-300-6999.

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The Hidden Costs of Telecom Services

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Admin1

Hidden Telecom Billing CostsIn business, what you don’t know certainly can hurt you. That’s especially true when you’re paying for telecommunications services. The billing practices and patterns of the telecom carriers could put a significant but avoidable extra financial hit on your organization unless you practice active telecom expense management and have the expertise to know what to watch out for.

The first fact of telecom billing is that a lot of errors creep into the system. Based on a sampling of phone bill audits, a whopping 85 to 90 percent of business telecom customers probably have significant errors that are costing them money. Undetected billing errors may appear on as many as 15 percent of your organization’s telecom invoices.

Overcharging by telcos can result from a host of mistakes, including duplicate billing, incorrect calculation of taxes, addition of inapplicable surcharges, charges for unused services, non-compliance with contract rates or terms, misapplication of a telecom tariff and possibly even fraudulent charges from a third-party service provider or even from the carrier itself.

Not only do these errors need to be corrected to prevent future overbilling, but past overpayments sometimes totaling thousand or tens of thousands of dollars can be recovered – if you’re willing and able to challenge incorrectly billed charges that have already been paid and negotiate a settlement. This has to be done in a timely manner since telecom carrier contracts limit the length of time a customer is allowed to revisit old charges and claim compensation for any past overpayments found.

A corollary fact to the high error rate in telecom billing is that telecom providers aren’t going to volunteer any corrections and refunds. Even if they’re the telco’s mistakes, they’re up to you, the customer, to identify and dispute. Telecom companies can be very resistant to applying a fix, no matter how justified, that eats away at their bottom lines.

Witness last year’s case involving Verizon, the country’s largest wireless carrier. It took pressure from the Federal Communications Commission to get Verizon to pledge refunds to 15 million customers who were billed $1.99 a pop for unwanted data usage sessions. The data use was in some cases initiated by software built into the phone, and in some cases it was activated accidentally by customers because of poor layout of the buttons on some Verizon handsets. The data rate schedule was structured so that a minimum charge of $1.99 was incurred no matter how short the session. Verizon may have raked in up to $90 million this way, essentially unearned money which it was nevertheless obviously reluctant to part with.

As an independent telecom consulting company since 1985, Telanalysis has the know-how to decipher your organization’s telecom and IT bills to discover the maximum savings hidden in them. We also have the expertise to pursue disputes with the telecom carriers to recover the most money possible. Telanalysis has no connection to any telecom provider and we work on a contingency basis, which means we make our living just by uncovering telecom savings for you! Call Telanalysis today for a free consultation at 866-300-6999 and let us begin lowering your company’s telecommunications bills.

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Effective Telecom Management Puts Big Demands on Busy Staff

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Admin1

Telecom ManagementWho’s keeping an eye your business’s telecom spending? Telecommunications management duties often fall to more than one individual in an office or enterprise, and organizational realities may mean that they’re not all communicating with each other. It may very well be that no one really has an overall picture of what your company is spending on telecom, let alone what it’s getting for the money.

It’s also quite likely that none of the employees charged with looking out for the various parts of your enterprise’s telecom expenditure is quite comfortable with the role that’s fallen to them. After all, telecommunications is a highly technical and complex field, and even well-intentioned staff might not have the right competencies to do an effective job of telecom management.

In many organizations, telecom gets dumped into the IT basket almost by default. While there certainly has been a gradual and ongoing convergence of telecommunications and computer technology, the average IT department is not equipped to approach telecom from a business and cost control perspective. And IT personnel as a rule stay so busy that they wouldn’t be able to focus on telecom spending and billing issues even if their expertise did extend that far.

Administrative generalists or accounts payable staff who handle telecom invoices may catch some obvious billing errors, but just identifying and properly coding phone charges to the right department or cost center and getting them out the door for payment is enough of a chore in itself. Checking for compliance with telecom contracts, or comparing bills to actual telecom equipment inventories, lies beyond the scope of what can be expected from even the most dedicated admin personnel.

Employees at the higher levels of the organizational hierarchy may not be very comfortable with managing telecommunications either. Even C-level officers tend to regard telecom as one of the facets of business operations with which they feel the least knowledgeable or competent, according to surveys of corporate leadership.

There’s no doubt then that procuring and efficiently deploying telecommunications systems and services today can seem like an overwhelming task. Rapidly evolving technology, ongoing changes in the telecom industry and a shifting government regulatory environment combine to make the telecom world a difficult place to navigate.

Given these challenges, expecting the average employee, and even some above-average employees, to be effective in telecom management may be hoping for more than can reasonably be expected. The truth is, to thoroughly audit, analyze and optimize business telecom spending today takes a specialist.

As a top telecom consulting company, Telanalysis can provide specialists who have the expertise and dedication to identify telecom overspending and save your organization the most money possible. Since 1985, Telanalysis has worked for the client alone, without ties to any telecom carrier. We even perform services on a contingency basis; you don’t have to pay a fee or retainer, and we succeed only by saving you money. Call Telanalysis today for a free consultation at 866-300-6999.

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AT&T, T-Mobile Put Merger on Hold – For Now

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Admin1

AT&T T-Mobile MergerAT&T and T-Mobile USA say they’re not yet giving up on plans to merge into the country’s largest wireless carrier in spite of the fact that the two telecom giants took the step over the holiday weekend of withdrawing the applications they filed earlier this year with the Federal Communications Commission. Many telecommunications consultants have doubted all along that the merger would actually go through because of opposition from both the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice.

The FCC weighed in last week with a finding that the merger would not serve the public interest, and referred the matter for hearing before an administrative law judge. The Justice Department had already filed a lawsuit in August to block the deal on anticompetitive grounds, with a six-week trial scheduled to begin in February 2012.

By withdrawing their FCC applications, AT&T and T-Mobile say they will focus on the antitrust litigation for now, and refile for FCC approval at an unspecified time in the future. AT&T meanwhile has taken a $4 billion accounting charge to offset a breakup fee that it will be contractually obligated to pay to T-Mobile’s parent company if the deal does not go through.

AT&T and T-Mobile are already the second- and fourth-largest U.S. wireless carriers respectively. T-Mobile USA is owned by Deutsche Telekom AG, a German firm that is the largest telecommunications company in Europe. Deutsche Telekom has reportedly been concerned with T-Mobile’s declining position in the U.S. wireless market, especially since the introduction of the iPhone. Various suitors for T-Mobile had been rumored for some time, and the proposed merger with AT&T was announced on March 20.

The Justice Department’s complaint, filed August 31 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asserts that T-Mobile currently plays a large role in keeping wireless pricing competitive in the U.S. and in spurring innovation in cell phone equipment and services among the biggest wireless carriers.

Rival wireless carrier Sprint has opposed the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, as has Cellular South, a Mississippi-based regional wireless provider that does business in parts of the southern U.S. as C Spire Wireless, a new name that it adopted just two months ago. Both Sprint and Cellular South took the unusual step of filing complaints of their own against the proposed merger deal in September. At one time there had actually been speculation that Sprint would seek to acquire T-Mobile.

Several states joined the Justice Department lawsuit a few weeks after its initial filing. Attorneys general from New York, Washington, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio and Pennsylvania signed on to the complaint in September. Puerto Rico subsequently joined the lawsuit as well. The Kansas attorney general, although not joining the anti-merger litigation, last week urged the FCC to block the deal, a step the agency took on November 23.  Sprint is based in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, Kansas.

As this latest possible consolidation in the wireless industry shows, the world of telecommunications is complex and fast-changing. The telecom specialists at Telanalysis can help your business or organization stay on top of the market and get you the best telecom deals possible. We’ve offered telecom management services since 1985 to help our clients make the most informed choices and get the best, most efficient service available from telecom providers. Call us for a free consultation at 866-300-6999.

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Telecom Management: Getting a Grip on a Top Line-Item Expense

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Admin1

Telecom BillingTelecommunications has evolved into such a crucial and indispensable part of business infrastructure that it’s typically among the five largest line items in a company’s budget today. For many businesses, total telecom spending even rose significantly during periods when unit pricing for telecom equipment and services was dropping because of advances in technology. In other words, increased use of telecommunications services more than offset the deflation in tech prices. Unfortunately, surveys have shown that telecom management is also one of the areas where a majority of corporate officers feel the least competent.

Such a gap between the high importance of business telecom services and the self-professed lack of knowledge among those charged with overseeing them does not bode well for a company. Odds are that in any organization, telecom spending has not been systematically optimized. In other words, it’s unlikely that your enterprise is getting the maximum bang for its telecom bucks.

The good news about this fact – the “glass-half-full” perspective – is that, in all likelihood, significant telecom savings are out there for the taking. Companies, government agencies, schools and non-profits looking to trim budgets in tough economic times might well find some of their easiest, most painless savings by digging into that bloated telecom expense line item. All it takes to root them out is a telecom audit performed by an experienced, dedicated telecom expense specialist.

Effective telecommunications management means monitoring every telecom invoice closely for overcharges and mistakes with the knowledge that at least 15 percent of telecom bills contain errors. It also entails auditing past invoices to uncover overcharges that may be recoverable and could amount to tens of thousands of dollars. Identifying unused services, putting a stop to recurring mistakes and errors and reconfiguring telecom services as efficiently as possible can bring huge future savings. Negotiating with carriers to arrive at the best settlement possible to rectify past mistakes and negotiating new telecom contracts that are not unfairly slanted to the carriers’ interests requires expertise in telecom tariffs, government regulations and rulings, customized contracts and codification.

Telanalysis is a telecommunications consulting firm that has been saving its clients money on telecom and IT spending since 1985. Telanalysis is independent company with no ties to any of the telecom carriers. We can expertly perform all aspects of good telecom management on your company’s behalf to correct past errors and save your firm money now and in the future. We find significant overbilling errors for 95 percent of our clients, and we can save a typical client anywhere from 20 to 60 percent on their average telecom bill going forward. We work on a contingency basis, meaning we don’t charge an upfront fee, just a percentage of the savings that we find for you. All that means that Telanalysis can bring one of your company’s top line item expenses more into line. Call us for a consultation at 866-300-6999.

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Negotiating Favorable Telecom Contracts Is Key to Reduced Costs and Good Service

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Admin1

Telecom Contract NegotiationA telecommunications audit at any business or organization will typically find significant savings and potential savings. From overbilling and other invoicing mistakes to the discovery of unused services that can be eliminated altogether, a thorough telecom audit can recover thousands of dollars in overpayments and reduce costs going forward anywhere from 20 to 60 percent.

But the real opportunity for telecom cost savings starts before a single circuit has been installed or a single bill has been sent out. One of the most important parts of telecom management is negotiating with the carriers to arrive at a contract that secures good telecom and IT service at good rates for your organization.

Telecom carriers are in business to make money, and every telco would like to lock you into a contract that commits as much of your telecom spending to their company for as long as possible, with provisions that make it hard to terminate the contract early, enforce penalties for poor service or make your own decisions about equipment upgrades and other changes.

Telecom contract negotiation can be an unpleasant and complex task, one in which you can easily feel outmatched by the greater knowledge and experience of the telco representatives. Here are some guidelines for negotiating with them:

Begin the telecom procurement process about a year before your current contract expires – Don’t put it off for so long that time limitations place you in a bad bargaining position with your incumbent carrier. The reality is that switching telecom carriers is a complex process that takes time. Don’t be forced into sticking with your current carrier if there might be a better deal and a better fit out there.

Go in prepared – Know your current telecom usage and equipment needs, and to the extent that it’s possible in the fast-changing worlds of business and technology, develop a projection of your future needs.

Interview several carriers – Make sure you’ve explored all of your options for providers of each type of service you need. It should be clear to each carrier’s rep that they’re competing for your telecom spending dollars. Your current carrier should see that you are more than willing to make a change depending on the contract terms that are offered.

Don’t agree to commit too much of your spending to a single carrier – Exclusivity clauses should never be accepted. You must be able to take your business to any other vendor if they can best serve a particular telecom need that arises. If a carrier is seeking a Minimum Annual Revenue Commitment (MARC) from you, don’t assume that a higher MARC is getting you a better deal, and don’t underestimate the value of the flexibility that a lower MARC affords you. Any MARC that you do agree to should apply to your spending as a whole; there should not be a separate MARC for each service line, because that will also limit your flexibility as technology changes.

Don’t commit to a contract term that’s too long – Resist promises of a supposedly better deal in exchange for an overly long commitment. Again, things change quickly, both in the realm of telecom and IT technology and in the business climate. Try to keep the term at 3 years or less.

Make clear the level of service that’s expected, and the consequences for the carrier if it doesn’t deliver – Meaningful metrics to measure service should be spelled out as clearly as possible in the Service Level Agreement (SLA) of any contract, as well as any resulting consequences for the carrier. Ultimately, the contract must give you the right to terminate the contract with no penalties for serious violations of the SLA.

List contingencies under which renegotiation of the contract is permitted – If either your company or the telco undergoes a substantial change in business organization such as a merger or acquisition, you should have the right to re-examine your telecommunications needs and renegotiate your contract.

Telanalysis is an experienced telecommunications consulting firm that can help you in the procurement phase with telecom contract negotiations. Telanalysis has no affiliation to any telecom carrier, so we are free to serve only your interests and nothing else. We’ve been serving clients since 1985 by helping them to lower their telecom expenditures. Call Telanalysis toll-free today at 866-300-6999.

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Monthly Monitoring of Telecom Bills Is a Money-Saving Must for Business

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Admin1

Of all the monthly invoices your company receives for payment, telecommunications invoices are the ones that you should perhaps pay the closest attention to. Landline and wireless phone bills should never be paid automatically, without close inspection, because 18 percent of all telecom bills contain mischarges. Corporate phone bill audits typically reveal overcharges going back months or years.

The savings to be found – and the overspending that can be avoided – can be significant. Admittedly, your company, or any other organization for that matter, is highly unlikely to unquestioningly pay a phone invoice like the record one sent to a Malaysian man in 2006 for $218 trillion (it was for a supposedly disconnected line that the man’s deceased father had left behind with a $23 balance). But many much smaller telecom billing mistakes that trickle through unnoticed can add up quickly. Ongoing telecom spending can be lowered by as much as 60 percent once the chronic issues that result in regular overcharging by the telecom carriers are resolved.

Telecom audits, when they are performed, routinely uncover money wasters that can run into many thousands of dollars for larger organizations. But straightening out your firm’s telecom expenditures isn’t a one-time thing. While phone bill audits are a great way to start the process of reining in your telecom overspending, it’s important to continually monitor your telecom invoices to make sure that mistakes and bogus charges don’t keep cropping up.

Unfortunately, experience shows that they will, and your only defense against paying too much for your telecom services is to keep an eagle eye on those invoices every single month, and to work with your telecom carriers to get their mistakes fixed. Some common recurring provider mistakes on telecom bills include tax rate errors, double-billing some line items, billing for other users’ charges, charging rates that are at variance with the contract and billing for equipment and lines that are not actually part of the customer’s inventory. Even if these issues are caught and sorted out, it’s common for promised credits from a telecom carrier to fail to appear on the next invoice.

Wireless billing is the source of some of the most egregious telecom overcharges. Stories of wireless invoices running into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars – or even more – appear in the news regularly. With so much confusion over what is and isn’t included in each wireless plan, particularly when it comes to roaming charges and international calls and texts, and with the exorbitant rates often charged by wireless carriers for such services out-of-plan, this problem is unlikely go away soon. A recently begun voluntary effort by wireless carriers to automatically alert users who are approaching their plan limits may help, however.

Another source of telecom overcharges to look out for are two fraudulent practices discussed in earlier blog posts – slamming and cramming. Slamming is the practice of changing your telecom provider without your permission, and cramming is the addition of fees to your phone invoice on behalf of third-party vendors for services you didn’t order and probably don’t want.

Staying vigilant for the many kinds of telco overcharging that can occur means investing a considerable amount of your staff’s time and effort. Even then, regular office staff may miss some of the more subtle telecom billing mistakes that can occur. The alternative is to hire a specialist – a telecom management company like Telanalysis.

Telanalysis has been saving companies and institutional telecom customers money since 1985. Telanalysis can not only audit your past telecom spending and handle telecom contract negotiations on your behalf, we can also manage your telecom invoices and keep a watchful eye out for costly errors. Call Telanalysis today at 866-300-6999 to find out all the ways we can bring down your firm’s telecom spending.

 

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“DON’T Put It on My Bill!”: ‘Cramming’ Sticks Telecom Users With Fraudulent Charges

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Admin1

Ever seen a mysterious charge on your phone bill for a service that you don’t remember ordering? You wouldn’t be the only one. Each year, 15 to 20 million U.S. households find unauthorized telecom charges on their landline, wireless or VOIP phone bill, according to statistics from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). These households have been the victims of a practice known as “cramming.”

Cramming occurs when unauthorized charges are tacked on to a customer’s phone bill, most often by a third party rather than by the telecom carrier itself. The charges are for supposed services that may carry a very vague description on the bill or invoice such as “MISCELLANEOUS” or just “MONTHLY SERVICE FEE.”

Often the charges are for such small amounts that they go unnoticed or unchallenged. Crammers are counting on the fact that many residential customers won’t find it worth their time to question a mysterious charge of a few dollars, at least not right away. Corporate telecom customers who don’t do regular a phone bill audit may let such charges slip through the bureaucratic cracks of their own complex telecom invoice approval processes. In any case, it works. The FCC cites a survey that showed that one cramming company’s charges were noticed by only 5 percent of its victims.

Some common services “sold” through cramming schemes include:

  • Toll-free 800 service lines
  • Text messaging services for daily horoscopes or celebrity news
  • “Psychic” hotline services
  • Web design or web hosting services
  • Credit protection plans

Even by inserting bogus charges as low as $2 a month, crammers stand to earn millions from their fraudulent practices. And sometimes the monthly charges can be much higher – up to $20, according to the FCC. Telecom carriers are complicit in cramming because even though the charges don’t originate with them, they get a cut from the crammers for handling the billing charges. The telecom carriers collect the money on behalf of the third-party vendor but don’t feel obligated to issue refunds if the charges are challenged. Perhaps not surprisingly, the third-party vendors customers get referred to are often very unresponsive.

How might charges get placed on your phone bill? Sometimes it’s out-and-out fraud, or “phantom billing.” The fact is, having your phone number fall into in the wrong hands can be almost as bad as having your credit card number stolen. Crammers who get ahold of your phone number can send billing information to your telecom carrier even if they’ve never made the pretense of trying to sell you their service.

Other times charges are tacked on after a customer gives verbal “approval” in response to a misleading phone sales pitch. A customer may assent to receive something for free or to enroll in a free trial offer without realizing that they’re also being automatically signed up for an ongoing service that will incur a monthly fee. Crammers can actually record their sales calls and use recordings of customers saying “yes” to the freebie as proof that he or she agreed to the whole package deal. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), other methods used to get people to unwittingly sign up for or use services that will be tacked onto their phone bills include:

  • Contest or sweepstakes entries that contain fine-print language stating that your entry constitutes permission to sign you up for a certain service. Be careful when any such entry asks for your phone number; again, the best rule of thumb is to guard it like you would your credit card numbers.
  • Clubs that you join by calling a toll-free number. The ads for these cramming clubs are purposely confusing. It may sound at first like the membership is free, when a closer look reveals that actually only the 800-number call to join is free. The membership itself incurs a monthly charge, which of course appears on your phone bill.
  • Free prizes that you claim by calling a 900 number. The “prize” is likely some cheap or worthless item on which you may even have to pay exorbitant shipping and handling charges. It’s not a value, only an inducement to get you to call the 900 number. Remember, 900 numbers aren’t free; in fact they’re “premium” service numbers that will cost you dearly for each minute you’re connected. In this cramming scheme, you will most likely be purposely left on hold for a while, breathlessly waiting to hear about your prize, in order to let the toll charges rack up.

The telecom companies are not too motivated to verify the legitimacy of third-party charges because they profit from them, too. The FCC estimates that just the “Big 3” telecom companies – AT&T, Qwest/CenturyLink and Verizon – have taken in well over $100 million per year as a result of cramming since 2006. That’s their cut of the estimated $2 billion collected annually by crammers.

Congress began looking into cracking down on cramming again this summer because the telecom carriers’ self-policing efforts over the past 15 years have failed miserably. Cramming has also been slowly changing from a landline-only phenomenon to a problem that also affects wireless and VOIP accounts. Today, cramming cases involve wireless or VOIP 18 percent of the time.

Federal regulations in the works would fight cramming by requiring that:

  • Telecom carriers must offer customers the ability to block third-party charges to their accounts.
  • Third-party charges must be shown separately from phone company charges on phone bills, in order to avoid confusion as to the source of the charges.
  • Telecom carriers must print FCC contact information on each phone bill, so that customers can easily contact the FCC to file cramming complaints.

The most common-sense measures that you can take now to avoid being a cramming victim, without waiting for government regulations to go into effect, are

  • Have your telecom carrier block third-party charges to your account if possible
  • Carefully read the whole form, including the fine print, any time you sign up for anything, especially if you’re being asked for your phone number
  • Check every phone bill thoroughly, and ask questions if any of the charges don’t look right.

Telanalysis is an experienced telecommunications management company that has been saving its clients money since 1985. Telanalysis can handle your organization’s telecom bill payments and keep a watchful eye out for bogus charges from cramming or from any other sloppy or unethical practices by third-party vendors or telecom carriers. Call Telanalysis today at 866-300-6999 to find out all the ways we can bring down your firm’s telecom spending.

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Telecom Costs Could Be the Gentlest Cut for Schools and Governments

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Admin1

According to the non-profit Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 42 out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia have projected revenue shortfalls for the 2012 fiscal year. The CBPP also reports that 23 states have made identifiable cuts in support for public schools. As state and local governments continue to face harsh fiscal realities in the current poor economy, officials all over the country are struggling to find the most painless ways to cut budgets. A wise move for them would be to hire telecom consultants, because telecommunications overspending is likely to be some of the lowest-hanging fruit in the cost-cutting game.

Just like every business today, every government entity needs telecom services, and like most business, they are probably overpaying for them. In fact, an estimated 15-18 percent of all telecom bills have incorrect charges on them. An incredible 95 percent of organizational telecom audits uncover some kind of significant billing error on the part of the telecom carriers. In addition, many institutional telecom customers are also paying for services that they never use or are no longer using. But telecom management is so complex today that overworked staffs don’t have time – and often don’t have the expertise – to properly check and analyze telecom contracts and bills.

By sniffing out telecom carriers’ mistakes and identifying unused telecom services, a good telecom audit firm can identify saving opportunities for a government department or school district that come with no sacrifice whatsoever. Money can be saved with no reduction in necessary telecom infrastructure and no service cuts to constituents or customer. The best part is that the audit itself is essentially pays for itself, because the best telecommunications consulting companies work on a contingency basis. The audit company is paid nothing up front and is compensated with a percentage of whatever savings they can ferret out. This contingency arrangement is a true win-win concept that makes the audit firm highly motivated to identify savings while taking all risk off of the client.

For more than 25 years, Telanalysis has performed telecommunications consulting and IT consulting for a wide variety of clients. Our expert telecom auditors can identify savings that will help your organization meet its budget goals, whether it’s a government entity or agency, quasi-governmental agency, institute of higher education, school administrative district or non-profit or for-profit corporation. We can also use our experience in the industry to negotiate for and procure the best telecom services deal on your behalf. Call Telanalysis for a risk-free consultation at 866-300-6999. 

 

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