john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (11/27/89)
I have been approached by a local company that offers long distance
service. They are very agressive and have been in the area for some
time. BizTel's sales force has been trying to convince me that their
rates are substantially lower than any of the "big boys", and that my
clients are losing money hand over fist every minute that they are not
making calls with BizTel.
The catch: Their service is entirely through FGA. When you sign up,
they come out to your premesis and install magic Mitel dialers on each
of your outside lines. When I found this out, I told them that there
was no way I would even consider their service. End of discussion. In
case you are approached by a similar operation, here's why the
discussion ended:
Problem #1
FGA uses ordinary dialup lines to place calls, similar to MCI in the
old days. You dial a local number, get a tone, enter your
authorization code, area code, and number. While the dialer does this
for you, it still requires a call to a *charged* number. In this area,
a local call during business hours is $.05 first minute, $.01 each
additional. And remember, that's whether your call is completed or
not. Every call attempt costs money, and if you have some aggressive
person in your office that is frustrated by someone's busy signal, the
cost could be significant.
Problem #2
FGA has no answer supervision. When I confronted them with this, they
claimed that their "time before answer assumption" was very generous
and worked in the customer's favor. Hogwash! You should be charged for
an answer and not charged otherwise. Period.
Problem #3
Since they program the dialers, they have the ability, unbeknownst to
the customer, to siphon off not only intralata calls, but local calls
as well. Not only would you pay Pac*Bell for the local call to their
switch, but they would charge you for the call as well. Do they ever do
this? You bet. In talking to some of their past customers, this was the
number one reason they switched to another long distance company.
Problem #4
The dialers are a heap-o-trouble. I remember when my company had
customers that had dialers between their switch and the CO lines, there
was constant "trunk" trouble, and the long distance company always
blamed the switch, even when time after time it was proved to be the
dialer's fault.
Avoid any long distance company that wants to install dialing equipment
at your location. In 1989, it is as necessary as a separate bell box
down on the wall. Tell them to take a hike.
John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395
john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
[Moderator's Note: MCI also was installing those dialers about twelve
years ago when everything of theirs went through dialups. And it was
MCI's failure to calculate the cost of local calls to the dialups (or
at least their failure to inform prospective customers of those
charges) which led me to file a formal complaint with the FCC in 1979.
MCI kept rattling about their 'big savings over AT&T' all the while
large companies who opted for their service in those days were paying
for thousands of (probably unnoticed) extra local units. My article in
[Telephony Magazine] and my subsequent filing with the FCC forced MCI
to begin advising prospects -- at least in tiny print at the bottom of
the page -- of those charges. Remember, in those days we paid but one
phone bill, to the local telco, and 'savings' in long distance offset
by increased charges in local calling were no savings at all! PT]jimmy@icjapan.uucp (Jim Gottlieb) (12/01/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0532m01a@chinacat.lonestar.org> john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: >The catch: Their service is entirely through FGA. When you sign up, >they come out to your premesis and install magic Mitel dialers on each >Problem #3 >Since they program the dialers, they have the ability, unbeknownst to >the customer, to siphon off not only intralata calls, but local calls >as well. Not only would you pay Pac*Bell for the local call to their >switch, but they would charge you for the call as well. Do they ever do >this? You bet. You bet! I can't believe the number of offices I wander into where they are using autodialers or PBXs set up to just send all 1+ calls to the alternate carrier. Here in L.A. (well, over there in L.A.) many 1+ calls are local so these companies are paying local call + OCC charges to call local and message unit (ZUM) numbers which would otherwise be very cheap. A few years back I was working for an interconnect and upon going out to a customer's site, discovered that their NEAX 2400 was programmed to do this. I mentioned the problem to the programmer, and told him that it needs to be programmed by prefix, not just by 1+: Him: "Do you know what an "if statement" is?" Me: "Yeah." Him: "It would require too many if statements." I felt that after the customer had paid over $100,000 for a phone system, they deserved better than this. So I told the customer what was happening and told them to demand that it be fixed. Of course I was promptly fired, but I still have no regrets. Jim Gottlieb Info Connections, Tokyo, Japan _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ <jimmy@pic.ucla.edu> or <jimmy@denwa.uucp> or <attmail!denwa!jimmy> Fax: (011)+81-3-448-0878 Voice Mail: (011)+81-3-944-6221 ID#82-42-424
macy@fmsystm.UUCP (Macy Hallock) (12/02/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0532m01a@chinacat.lonestar.org> john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: >I have been approached by a local company that offers long distance >The catch: Their service is entirely through FGA. When you sign up, >they come out to your premesis and install magic Mitel dialers on each >of your outside lines. When I found this out, I told them that there >was no way I would even consider their service. End of discussion. In >case you are approached by a similar operation, here's why the >discussion ended: >FGA uses ordinary dialup lines to place calls, similar to MCI in the >old days. You dial a local number, get a tone, enter your >authorization code, area code, and number. While the dialer does this >for you, it still requires a call to a *charged* number. In this area, >a local call during business hours is $.05 first minute, $.01 each >additional. And remember, that's whether your call is completed or >not. Every call attempt costs money, and if you have some aggressive >person in your office that is frustrated by someone's busy signal, the >cost could be significant. First: many carriers are continuing to use Feature Group B (950-XXXX) access which does not incur a local calling charge. Feature Group A (std. phone number) is fast fading, but always incurs a local charge. Are you sure its FGA and not FGB? And I have seen numbers that look like FGA but do not incur a local message charge. Best way to tell: get the access number from the technician and call it from a telco provided paystation. If you can get through and touch-tone into the switch without dropping the quarter, its free. (Note: I have seen telcos that require a quarter even on FGB calls, so even this is not foolproof.) There are sound reasons to use FGB and not FGD: access cost from the phone co. to the carrier is about half that of FGD on both the setup and per minute transport elements. Important if the savings are to be passed on to the customer. >FGA has no answer supervision. When I confronted them with this, they >claimed that their "time before answer assumption" was very generous >and worked in the customer's favor. Hogwash! You should be charged for >an answer and not charged otherwise. Period. Hold it. Answer supervision is not the issue on the orginating end of the call. For the carrier to bill the call most accurately, answer supervision on the terminating end of the call is a must, so the ticketing equipment can determine when and if the call was answered. You cannot assume that just because the orgination is FGA or FGB that no answer supervision is in use. Answer supervsion is available to the carrier on terminating trunks provided by the telco on all FG's: A,B,C and D. Its just that the carrier has to order and pay for the feature on FGA and B trunks, but its usually standard on FGC and D terminating trunks. Now, the question is: does the carrier have it and use it? And the only way to know is ask someone knowledgable, like the people who manage the carrier's switching systems. The sales and cutomer service people sure don't know, they'll just repeat the carrier's standard line. >Since they program the dialers, they have the ability, unbeknownst to >the customer, to siphon off not only intralata calls, but local calls >as well. Not only would you pay Pac*Bell for the local call to their >switch, but they would charge you for the call as well. Do they ever do >this? You bet. In talking to some of their past customers, this was the >number one reason they switched to another long distance company. Do not assume dialers are automatically programmed incorrectly. Do you have good reason to believe this company is less than reputable? Sure, they can abuse you. That's what contracts are for: to define the services to be provided. The sales literature is part of the contract, and you must instruct the carrier as to what you really want. In Writing! And you must confirm it. And nail the SOB's who lie and cheat! At the very least don't pay the bill. I've caught Bell, GTE, ATT, MCI, SPC and others in improper billings, service errors, tariff violations and (on rare occasion) in outright lies. You must always protect your own interests...no matter who you are dealing with in this industry. There is enough complexity that anyone, be they BOC, OCC, CPE vendor or consultant can mislead, omit details, or confuse you. Don't let them win by default. Spell out what you think you are getting, and be sure you are getting it. I have seen many instances where sending the intra-LATA calls thru the carrier is advantageous to both the carrier and customer. Check the rate tables...often the cost is the same, but the addtional dollar volume will move the discount they offer on the bottom line up a notch. >The dialers are a heap-o-trouble. I remember when my company had >customers that had dialers between their switch and the CO lines, there >was constant "trunk" trouble, and the long distance company always >blamed the switch, even when time after time it was proved to be the >dialer's fault. This can happen. Some dialers are less trouble that others, and some dialers are quite good. The Mitel Smart One series of dialers is one of the best one the market...but even they have problems with certain types of central offices and switch combinations. (Example: GTE GTD-5 CO with ground start trunks terminating on certain types of crossbar PBX's) I have also seen telco station carrier equipment create problems for dialers (and key systems and PBX's....) Does this mean "Dialers Are Bad For Us All" ? And lazy/poorly trained tech's are always a problem, in this and any other industry. No one company has a monopoly on lousy service....it appears to be a shared concession. >Avoid any long distance company that wants to install dialing equipment >at your location. In 1989, it is as necessary as a separate bell box >down on the wall. Tell them to take a hike. John, you have not given us enough information here to justify this conclusion. Do you mean (un)Equal Access is all we will ever need? Sure, one problem here is the level of complexity. Adding components often increases the probabilty of failure. A single line phone on a CO line is often more reliable than adding a key system to the line...or a PBX. (At least that's how they sell Centrex...) And are you willing to manage the additional complexity? Does it help the company/individual using the services achieve their goals (saving money, better service or whatever)? I agree that most newer PBX'x should offer you complete flexibility in routing your calls. Most key systems do not offer this, though. For cost reasons, Automatic Route Selection is a feature of systems over 30-40 stations, usually. If you can get acceptable quatility and save money, the use of dialers is worth the effort. You can actually route calls from your key system almost as intelligently as any sophisticated PBX can. The Mitel dialers are very good at this...GET THE MANUAL! Notice the RS-232 port on the bottom....now you can take control of your communications by using a terminal! (Soap Box mode on) The issues here are really: Control, Choice and Knowledge. One example is our local operating companies: Because part of this industry is still controlled by a "natural monopoly" the operations and services we use are restricted. The phone company controls the standard methods of access. They figure most people will do the easy thing and use standard 1+ for all calls. That's why they were very careful to set up the Equal Access services the way they did: long distance was always very lucrative for them and they wanted to keep what they could, which is the intra-LATA. They protected what they saw as in their best interest, but not necessarily in everyone's best interest. That's why you have to work so hard to beat their system: your must dial the extra digits in order to have a choice, be they 10XXX or 950-XXXX or whatever. The phone company charges the customer and the carrier the most for the easiest to use services. Centrex is another example of this: charges are tied not to cost of service, but what the customer will pay for the convenience. So are Touch Tone, Call Waiting, etc. None of these services adds significantly to the per line cost of the central office. Equal Access could be far more equal, but the phone companies won't do it...so users have to do it themselves or pay the price. But, at least you have a choice, thanks to deregulation: You can always dial the extra digits and save, but most people won't. So you use dialers or smart phones or PBX's to do the extra work, and you save. The competitive nature of the long distance industry keeps the carriers working to reduce the cost of the service. The phone companies, long distance carriers, and telephone equipment manufacturers have learned that users will pay for convenience. And now they have figured out how to do it. Just because we do not agree on how some companies use (and abuse) this fact does not mean intelligent users cannot make intelligent choices. Choice + Knowledge = Control of your communcations. All of the issues John raised are legitmate to the average telephone user. By using our knowledge and technology, we can take control of our communications, and set our own priorities and make our own choices. I find it very hypocritical of readers of this newsletter to make generalizations like John raised, though. The deregulation of telecommunications brought us many choices and opportunites. We have the responsibility of learning and making intelligent choices. And sometimes we make the wrong choices (for us, at least). It's when we are given no choice or relinquish it that we lose control. Disclaimer: This is my opinion. Just because I picked on the telcos in this posting doesn't mean I hate them...I just don't agree with the idea that there is any one "right" way for something to be done. John is being flamed here only because he generalized that "This choice was bad for us all" (And I think he knows better!) (Soap Box mode off) There. I feel much better now. Comments and/or flames welcomed: Just make your point. Macy M. Hallock, Jr. macy@NCoast.ORG uunet!aablue!fmsystm!macy F M Systems, Inc. {uunet!backbone}!cwjcc.cwru.edu!ncoast!fmsystm!macy 150 Highland Drive Voice: +1 216 723-3000 Ext 251 Fax: +1 216 723-3223 Medina, Ohio 44256 USA Cleveland:273-3000 Akron:239-4994 (Dial 251 at tone) (Insert favorite disclaimer here) (What if I gave a .sig and nobody cared?)
john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (12/03/89)
In article <1750@accuvax.nwu.edu>, macy@fmsystm.UUCP (Macy Hallock) writes: > First: many carriers are continuing to use Feature Group B (950-XXXX) > access which does not incur a local calling charge. > Feature Group A (std. phone number) is fast fading, but always incurs > a local charge. Are you sure its FGA and not FGB? And I have seen > numbers that look like FGA but do not incur a local message charge. They gave me their access numbers. The prefix was a very ordinary downtown San Jose prefix. Nothing special at all about it. They told me that *in the future* they would be getting 950 (FGB) access. I do know the difference, thank you very much, and have even read the big yellow Bellcore manual on the topic. > There are sound reasons to use FGB and not FGD: access cost from the > phone co. to the carrier is about half that of FGD on both the setup > and per minute transport elements. Important if the savings are to be > passed on to the customer. But it didn't pencil out. The cost of the local call + their call costs were not much of a bargain, so your point is moot. If they were getting great savings by using FGA (and it was FGA, not FGB), it was simply to help their own bottom line. > >FGA has no answer supervision. When I confronted them with this, they > >claimed that their "time before answer assumption" was very generous ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > You cannot assume that just because the orgination is FGA or FGB that > no answer supervision is in use. Read what I wrote about what their technician claimed. Since when do you use time before answer assumption if you have answer supervision? > Answer supervsion is available to the carrier on terminating trunks > provided by the telco on all FG's: A,B,C and D. Its just that the > carrier has to order and pay for the feature on FGA and B trunks, but > its usually standard on FGC and D terminating trunks. And if they have to order it and pay extra for it, I think it's safe to assume that they won't utilize it. After all, each little thing they have to pay extra for is going to erode their profits that much more, or, to give them the benefit of the doubt, reduce the great savings they can pass on to the customer. > Now, the question is: does the carrier have it and use it? No they didn't. And they were quite frank about it. > Do not assume dialers are automatically programmed incorrectly. Do > you have good reason to believe this company is less than reputable? Yes, I went out and visited some of their customers, one current, and two past. The past customers showed me their OCC bills for LOCAL calls that had been intercepted by the dialers. Their current customer allowed me to play with their phone. The dialers were not only programmed incorrectly, but different lines in the same trunk group were progammed differently. This I pointed out to them and they indicated that they were going to check it out. > I have seen many instances where sending the intra-LATA calls thru the > carrier is advantageous to both the carrier and customer. Check the > rate tables...often the cost is the same, but the addtional dollar > volume will move the discount they offer on the bottom line up a > notch. No way can it be advantageous to pay for a local call twice! You are already paying for the local call to the OCC's switch. Anything they add to the bill is gouge to the customer. Not to mention increased connection time, poorer transmission, etc., etc. > Does this mean > "Dialers Are Bad For Us All" ? Yes, it does. What possible justification can there be to add a layer of electronic gauze to any system when the technology exists to avoid it? And is cheaper? > No one company has a monopoly on lousy service....it > appears to be a shared concession. Wrong. GTE of California might qualify for an exclusive. Sorry, I couldn't resist that one. > John, you have not given us enough information here to justify this > conclusion. Do you mean (un)Equal Access is all we will ever need? Actually I did in the original post. You were too busy reading between the lines and missed what I actually said. I said: 1. They used FGA. 2. They admitted they had no answer supervision. 3. That I had checked with their customers and that they were paying too much for local calls due to improperly programmed dialers. 4. That I had personal experience with faulty dialers. To my aging eyes, that looks like the pertinent information. > I agree that most newer PBX'x should offer you complete flexibility in > routing your calls. Most key systems do not offer this, though. For > cost reasons, Automatic Route Selection is a feature of systems over > 30-40 stations, usually. My client had the option of using his own PBX, which does ARS. The OCC indicated that they would be happy to have it happen that way. Even though that would negate my objections 3 and 4 above, I opted not to go with them; the savings were too marginal. > Disclaimer: This is my opinion. Just because I picked on the telcos > in this posting doesn't mean I hate them...I just don't agree with > the idea that there is any one "right" way for something to be done. > John is being flamed here only because he generalized that "This choice > was bad for us all" (And I think he knows better!) And I'm flaming back (rather than sending you an e-mail bomb) because you seemed to take issue with everything I said and completely ignored my reasons for saying it. You also made some interesting assumptions and generalizations. You seemed to assume that I couldn't tell the difference between FGA and FGB, that I was confused concerning trunk side vs station side CO connection, that I was ignorant concerning the ability to provide station side answer supervision, and that my (totally justified) suspicion of OCCs using dialers was leading all God's children astray. As to the matter of choices in the telecommunications industry, there are many old technologies that we no longer need to consider. Using dialers to provide long distance connections is one of them. If you can document one single OCC that, using dialers, provides better and cheaper service than its competitors who use FGD (and be sure to include those local units!), they I will be more than pleased to eat my words and any other crow of your choice publicly in this forum. But beware -- I can produce documentation for every assertion that I have made on this topic. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
guestg@zariski.harvard.edu (John McKay) (12/04/89)
What is the justification for billing by the minute?
pdg@chinet.chi.il.us (Paul Guthrie) (12/04/89)
One thing to keep in mind is that the use of dialers to access inter-lata carriers does not necessarily mean that the customer pays for the local call into the carrier. Many carriers use FGB lines (950 NXX), and bear the (much reduced) costs. Paul Guthrie chinet!nsacray!paul
john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (12/07/89)
In article <1801@accuvax.nwu.edu>, pdg@chinet.chi.il.us (Paul Guthrie) writes: > One thing to keep in mind is that the use of dialers to access > inter-lata carriers does not necessarily mean that the customer pays > for the local call into the carrier. Many carriers use FGB lines (950 > NXX), and bear the (much reduced) costs. It's time to dump this myth. I have the package for OCCs that is supplied by Pac*Bell. It includes all of the technical requirements, rates, billing procedures, etc., etc., for the various connections that OCCs can get to Pac*Bell. The long and the short of it is: the difference in cost to OCCs between FGB and FGD is fractional cents per minute. Plus, with FGD you can accept or waive a number of Pac*Bell services that can materially affect your connection costs. The major difference is POP requirements. Besides I wasn't talking about FGB in the first place. I was talking about FGA. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
pdg@chinet.chi.il.us (Paul Guthrie) (12/09/89)
In article <1897@accuvax.nwu.edu> john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: >In article <1801@accuvax.nwu.edu>, pdg@chinet.chi.il.us (Paul Guthrie) writes: >> One thing to keep in mind is that the use of dialers to access >> inter-lata carriers does not necessarily mean that the customer pays >> for the local call into the carrier. Many carriers use FGB lines (950 >> NXX), and bear the (much reduced) costs. >The long and the short of it is: the difference in cost to OCCs >between FGB and FGD is fractional cents per minute. Plus, with FGD you >can accept or waive a number of Pac*Bell services that can materially >affect your connection costs. The major difference is POP >requirements. This may be true in your area. I was not talking about carrier costs, merely the subscriber costs in accessing the carrier. FGBs (and FGDs) cost the subscriber $0 on their phone bill (except that which is naturally passed back to them through the LD call costs). >Besides I wasn't talking about FGB in the first place. I was talking >about FGA. And I wasn't talking about FGD, just pointing out that just because you have dialers, does not mean FGA...... It could be FGB. Paul Guthrie chinet!nsacray!paul