mvanbusk@bcm1a05.attmail.com (01/18/91)
In response to the questions raised about aggregators the following
information should be helpful. First, employees of an aggregator are
NOT authorized to represent themselves as AT&T employees. Second, if
you purchase service from an aggregator AT&T will still provide direct
billing to you. AT&T does not share specific account information with
aggregators. The only information they should have is that which is
obtained from you.
Mark Van Buskirk AT&T (800-544-1697) Rolling Meadows, Il
[Moderator's Note: Mr. Van Buskirk, I was wondering what advantage
there is to AT&T to work through aggregators in this way? Why do they
do it? It seems like your company is losing money by allowing these
artificial groupings to be billed at whatever lower rates apply.
Shouldn't there at least be some sort of affinity between the
individuals involved, i.e. all in the same organization; the same
employer; or at least the same physical location such as a hotel or
apartment complex reselling phone service, etc? Can you explain why
AT&T is willing to allow such poorly defined collections of users to
get reduced rates? PAT]johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) (01/20/91)
In article <16195@accuvax.nwu.edu> TELECOM Moderator writes: >[Moderator's Note: Mr. Van Buskirk, I was wondering what advantage >there is to AT&T to work through aggregators in this way? According to an article in {Data Communications} (not a bad magazine, available free to qualified readers) the AT&T aggregator business exists because of tariff peculiarities. AT&T can't cut their prices other than via Tariff 12, a cumbersome scheme that they use to make special deals with very large customers. There are few enough Tariff 12 customers that they were listed in a table in the article, and are all Fortune 100 companies. Other than that, all you get is list price volume discounts. The aggregator business allows AT&T to compete with other LD carriers for smallish but still price-sensitive accounts, since the price charged through the aggregator reflects the total volume of calls the aggregator sells. The scheme they use is actually one that was intended for companies that have many locations and want each location to be billed for its own calls. The aggregators resell this service, so the effect is that each of the aggregator's customers get a bill straight from AT&T, but at a lower price than they'd pay if they went direct. I forget how the aggregator makes money, either it's a fee they charge their customers, or AT&T rebates part of the ultimate customers' bills. AT&T is apparently finding all of this a headache, both because it's hard to administer (aggregator customers come and go much faster than the companies for whom the deal was intended open and close offices,) there are credit problems (whom do they go after if the customer doesn't pay) and there is of course complaining from the competitors that AT&T is undercutting their published prices. They are extremely reluctant to sign up any new aggregators at this point. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl
wright@ais.org (Carl Wright) (01/31/91)
In article 16225 (John R. Levine) writes: >According to an article in {Data Communications} (not a bad magazine, >available free to qualified readers) the AT&T aggregator business >exists because of tariff peculiarities. [other stuff deleted] AT&T developed IMHO multi-location WATS and Affinity Group WATS to permit it to sell to large corporations with many allied locations and give a discount for the amount of business brought to them in one sale. They are forced to permit the aggregator to build its own group because of laws/regulations prohibiting them from restricting access to tariffed services to just a segment of the possible buyers. The service must be available to all comers, even other competitors. I spoke at a conference for aggregators done by Dr. Bob Self, guru of tariffs. Many of the speakers imagined that AT&T liked this so long it brought in the other guy's customer and hated when it just lowers their income on existing customers. Aggregation is being done also with MCI and Sprint, but most attendees were interested in using AT&T. This is partly because MCI is resisting aggregation strenuously. I don't know why Sprint wasn't being used more. >direct. I forget how the aggregator makes money, either it's a fee >they charge their customers, or AT&T rebates part of the ultimate >customers' bills. I imagine that this has changed, but many of the aggregators at the conference were getting credits against their bills. This left them with growing credits, but no CASH. It sounded like AT&T might be changing this, but I haven't heard. This is a very fast changing situation and the conference was many months ago. Carl Wright | Lynn-Arthur Associates, Inc. Internet: wright@ais.org | 2350 Green Rd., #160 Voice: 1 313 995 5590 EST | Ann Arbor, MI 48105