BUSINESS PHONE NEWS

Will Auto-Renewal of Bad Voice & Data Contracts Drag You Over Your Own Telecom Fiscal Cliff in 2013?

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

As Washington wrangles over the details of avoiding a national "fiscal cliff", business owners and managers should take a day or two to find the fiscal cliffs buried in their current telecom agreements.

Just as the nation's taxpayers want their Washington political representatives to eliminate spending on overpriced or underutilized services, so too should every business be scrutinizing the details of every contract  for voice and data services that generates a monthly invoice.

 

Auto-Renewal = Going Over the Telecom Cliff

I've been in the telecom business since 1990 and the only rates that I've ever seen go up year after year are copper phone line rates from AT&T and Verizon. All other rates on all other services have gone down every year for over 20 years.

The reason telecom carriers write their contracts so they auto-renew at the end of a term is to prevent their customers from asking for lower rates.  If you do not notify your telecom carriers that it is your intention to review and renegotiate each and every agreement prior to the expiration of the term you are locking in lower business profits for yourself and giving your telecom vendor higher profits without your vendor giving you more value in return.

 

How to Renegotiate Your Telecom Contracts Without Switching Voice & Data Carriers

The main reason most business customers let their contracts auto-renew is because they simply don't have the time, energy or resources to conduct a thorough market analysis of their current vendor's competition and they really don't want to change providers anyway.

While an aversion to switching carriers is understandable since that's when major outages can occur, an aversion to saving 10% on a voice or data phone bill is hard to understand, especially since it can be accomplished without switching service providers if a professional network services "independent partner" is engaged for a contract renewal consulting agreement.

The trick to successfully negotiating a lower contract rate from your existing provider is in being able to convince your current provider that you can easily access the same or better service at a lower rate from one of their competitors. Unfortunately, getting competitive contract pricing information from your current carrier's competitors (that you have no real intention of switching to) can be tough. This is where an independent sales consultant is invaluable.

Independent telecom agents or "channel partners" work with all the different voice and data competitors and are very familiar with the most aggressive pricing that all the vendors provide to retail customers in any given competitive scenario. More often than not, an independent sales consultant can provide the exact documentation you need to get your current provider to lower your current rates IF and ONLY IF you've not let your agreement auto-renew.

 

How Can You Get Contract Renegotiation Help? Call Us!

Click here to find a recommended telecom agent or independent network services sales partner in your area.  All agents and partners help customers in different ways and at different price points. Some charge a straight hourly rate, some charge a "shared savings" percentage and others simply charge a "management over-ride" percentage of all the monthly invoices they help you manage.

To find the right partner for your renegotiation needs you'll want to work with someone that understands your specific network voice and data design so that competitive comparisons are done in an "apples for apples" manner.

 

Keywords: independent telecom agent, sales partner, network services, contract, service agreement, renegotiation, shared savings, auto-renewal, at&t, verizon, cliff, telecom fiscal, Image: iStock

How to Access Avaya, Adtran or Samsung Business Phone Solutions Through the Tech Vendor of Your Choice

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

Can separate technology equipment vendors really work together successfully to provide business end users with critical productivity applications that require integrated telecommunications solutions?

Not usually (or not cheaply).

Over the past decade a serious problem has occurred to the "interconnect" businesses across the US that have always been available to help small businesses keep their PBX phones running. The problem is many of them have gone out of business and the ones that are left have little interest or time for multi-vendor integration projects that don't have very fat margins.

 

If Your Phone Guy Won't Sell You IT, Get Your IT Guy to Sell You Phones

Right after "We want it to cost less", the number two request of most business owners of any communication technology integration project is, "I want just one throat to choke!"  For many businesses, this second request is really the first such that they'd actually pay more for a solution if they can get a single vendor to "own" the whole solution.

Enter the ICP or "integrated communications provider".

ICP's can be phone guys that now help their customers with their IT networks or IT guys that now install phones. This ability to "single source" integrated communication solutions that mix phones, computers and smartphones makes business customers more competitive (and their ICP vendor more profitable).

 

How Hard is Selling & Installing Business Phone Systems?

Not that hard if it's done through NTS Direct.  Despite their name, NTS does not sell Avaya, Samsung or Adtran phone systems directly to business end-users, but they do help design, sell and support these business phone system installations through almost any sort of technology company that may have customers asking for single source solutions that will include one of these three phone systems.

As phone systems become just "one more application" on a businesses integrated voice and data network, business customers that like the Avaya, Adtran or Samsung phone system equipment solutions can stick with these phone systems AND get them installed and serviced through the tech vendor of their choice - through NTS Direct.

Click here to download a whitepaper interview with Scott Davis, President of NTS Direct and read how their Avaya, Samsung and Adtran affiliate program works to help business customers single source integrated communications solutions through the tech or IT vendor of their choice.

 

The Best of Both Worlds? Yes!

Multi-location businesses in the US have significant existing investments in Avaya, Adtran and Samsung business phone system equipment equipment. For one reason or another though many no longer have a relationship with the business phone system interconnect company that initially sold them their phone system.

Now, through NTS Direct, any business that has Avaya, Adtran or Samsung phone equipment (or wants it) can access it through the local tech or IT vendor of their choice so that the customer can have the "single source solution" that they want for their converged voice and data telecom solution.

If you don't yet have a preferred ICP or "integrated communications professional" to be your single source solution, click here to find a recommended Telecom Association solutions partner in your local metro area to help you. You can also contact me for a customized referral.

How Does Verizon's New Unlimited Voice/Text and Shared Data Plan Change Your Phone Bill Budget?

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email  

Finally. One of the biggest phone companies on the planet did something that will make the life of a business owner a little easier -- or did they?

Click here to read the Verizon Wireless press release that states that they are eliminating all their different "buckets of minutes" rate plans in favor of just letting all their customers talk and text all they like for one flat monthly price.

"All you can eat" talk and text. That's gotta be a good thing, right?

If all your employees do is talk and text a lot this new plan certainly is good. Except your employees don't just "talk and text". What they seem to be doing mostly these days is "apping" it up with every data drinking phone app they can figure our how to download onto their phones.

"Cha Ching" (That's the sound of you paying for your employees' mobile data usage through Verizon's new "shared data" pricing -- which is the other half of their new pricing package.)

 

Will Your Business Wireless Phone Bill Go Up or Down?  Yes...

In effect, Verizon simply held up a mirror to its old pricing package and said, "This is the new package". Where they used to have unlimited data and metered voice and text, now they have metered data and unlimited voice and text.

To learn how this will affect business wireless phone bills I called two people I know that run business wireless expense monitoring and management companies, Moe Arnaiz from eMobus out of San Diego and Josh Lipton from Advantix out of Texas.

Your Phone Company Just Declared Bankruptcy. What Should You Do? (and When Should You Do It?)

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email

 The stormy seas of the current economy is ripping holes into the bottom of many "telecom ships".  

Following are news headlines from just a few phone companies whose customers have found themselves in treacherous waters over the last several years:

• Bankruptcy Survivor Global Crossing is Acquired By Level 3 - October 2011
• TNCI of Boston Declares bankruptcy - October 2011
• Only Bidder Birch Buys Bankrupt Cordia Communications - July 2011
• FairPoint Communications Emerges From Bankruptcy - January 2011 
• Florida's AstroTel Files Bankruptcy - January 2011
• Financially Troubled One Communications Acquired by EarthLink - December 2010
• Accounting Scandal Survivor Qwest Acquired by CenturyTel - April 2010
• Sprint and AT&T in Bankruptcy Danger? - January 2010
• Bankruptcy Survivor MCI Worldcom Acquired by Verizon - January 2006
• Bankrupt Norvergence Liquidated, But Customers Still Pay - January 2005

As the headlines above name some of the biggest names in telecom, it seems that market size is not always a guarantee against financial troubles.

 

What You Should Do (Before & After) Your Phone Company Gets Into Trouble

Will the Verizon Strike Adversely Affect Your Business Phone or Data Service?

Posted By Dan Baldwin
Editor, 951-251-5155 email

This past weekend Verizon's 45,000 union workers (out of 196,000 total workers) voted to go on strike against Verizon rather than concede to what they call "Wisconsin-style" union busting tactics at the negotiating table that would "gut the health care" benefits of union workers among other labor issues.

I got my start in the business phone service industry working for "the phone company" in the early 90's and had the opportunity to work side by side, as a manager, with many union members. I know from personal experience that they're hard working and very dedicated to their craft.

Now as an independent business phone bill auditor as well as a voice and data network services consultant, I work with

AT&T: Your business is important ... start paying $8 more per month for every phone line!

Posted By Dan Baldwin
Editor, 951-251-5155 email

So I'm helping a large multi-location business customer sort through, analyze, organize and otherwise  "fix" their multiple AT&T and Verizon phone bills and we ran across this politely worded notice recently mailed from Ma Bell:

 

Dear Valued AT&T Customer:

Your business is important to us...(yada, yada, yada)...please note that monthly rates for Local Exchange service are scheduled to increase as follows...(we're adding $8 a month to the cost of each phone line).

If you have any questions...(blah, blah, blah)...Thank you for choosing AT&T.

Sincerely,

Your AT&T Service Team

Huh, what!? 

Well I can certainly understand why AT&T "values their

The Telecom Contract Lawyer You Need at a Price You Can Afford

Posted By Dan Baldwin
Editor 951-251-5155 email

All business customers of the telecom carriers and phone companies have one thing in common - they get billed for (and invariably have to pay) whatever their carrier contract agreement says (or has been changed to say) they have to pay.

The problem for all business phone company customers though is that unless the phone company contract agreement has been thoroughly reviewed by a "Telecom Lawyer" familiar with carrier contract tariff loopholes and "we can raise our rates any time we change our website" clauses, the contract may not say what the business customer or telecom decision maker hopes it says when they sign it.

Any sized business customer needs an experienced telecom lawyer to quickly and cost effectively review any and all their telecom vendor and business phone company contracts as most can be dramatically altered by the carrier without the business customer's consent.

The reason most customers sign telecom vendor contracts without having them first reviewed by a telecom lawyer is