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| Author |
Message |
aruba
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Bad news about ISDN charges
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Dec 30 08:33 UTC 1997 |
I'm afraid I have some bad news about our ISDN costs.
Back in July, STeve spoke with our Ameritech representative Ken Kiernan
about how much ISDN service would cost us. We needed two 128K ISDN
installations - one at the pumpkin and one at the other end (at the time
we thought that would be Jared's apartment, but it turned out to be
Dorian's). Ken quoted STeve a price of about $25.17 per line per month
and $42 per line for installation. At the July board meeting we
authorized $200 for installation and $60 per month for ongoing costs.
(That was for both lines, and we were allowing a bit of cushion. See
resp:coop,29,0 for the allocation motion.)
When STeve ordered the lines on July 31, he announced that he had made an
error when reporting the installation costs (see resp:coop,21,74), but
that the monthly costs would be about $25 per line. We all agreed to go
ahead with things. In September the phone bill showed a charge of $317
for installation of 2 ISDN lines, and our monthly bill went up by $54.45.
The installation charge seemed high, and STeve started to work on Ken
about it, but otherwise things seemed fine. Our ISDN lines were up and
running in September.
The October bill showed no change in our service. The November bill, however,
showed *another* charge of $317 for installation of two lines. I figured that,
as usual, Ameritech had screwed up, and I gave the bills to STeve so he could
harass them about it.
Then the December bill came and I noticed that the "Monthly Service Charge"
had gone up $54.45 between October and December, just as it had between August
and October. After mentioning it to the Board, last week I called Ameritech
about it. (It looked to me like they had raised the rates on us, and I
thought that they weren't allowed to do that under the terms of our Centrex
contract.)
I spoke with a woman named Shirley at Ameritech Small Business Services. She
seemed to know what she was talking about, and she gave me some bad news I
really wasn't expecting: both charges are right. Apparently the September
charge was for installation of one end of the ISDN line, and the November
charge was for the other. The reason they were billed to us two months apart
is not clear, but Shirley thought that was just some quirk of the accounting
system. But the result was that we were lulled into thinking we had finished
paying when we hadn't.
The reason both installation charges were for two lines is that each 128K line
is considered 2 lines by the phone company. Lots of you know more about ISDN
than I do and can say why this is the case. But it sure made the bill
confusing, and apparently it caused a miscommunication between STeve and Ken
Kiernan over the price.
It may still turn out that Shirley was wrong and Ameritech screwed up, but at
the moment it looks like we, the Grex Board, screwed up and bought something
which will cost us more than we thought it would - about $630 in installation
costs and $108.90 per month in ongoing costs.
Rereading this item just now, I realize that there are a lot of numbers and it
may be quite confusing. But the bottom line is that we will be paying about
3 times as much for installation and twice as much in monthly charges than
what we allocated last July. :(
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| 69 responses total. |
aruba
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response 1 of 69:
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Dec 30 09:55 UTC 1997 |
I entered this item in order to let everyone know what's going on. I think
it's a bit premature to panic and declare that we need to make changes in
order to keep from "living beyond our means". I will be posting a year-end
report very soon, and from that we ought to be able to make a realistic
assessment of whether we need to make changes or not.
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richard
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response 2 of 69:
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Dec 30 23:42 UTC 1997 |
that adds up to roughly $1,300 a year for ISDN ($108.90
a month) Is ISDN worth that much? I dont notice that
much difference in grex speed now than before the ISDN
lines were connected.
I suppose Grex has no choice though, because it has
already spent the money for the installation.
Didnt Grex have contracts from Ameritech stipulating the
exact amounts for connections and service? Why was
there any lack of communication where this much money
was involved?
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kaplan
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response 3 of 69:
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Dec 31 14:08 UTC 1997 |
Richard, the money we spend on installation (about $630) is gone. The money
we spent on the routers (Mark did not mention the figure above. I think it
was a little under $1000) can be partially recovered if we sell the routers
used.
I disagree with your statement that we have no choice. We do have a choice
between spending the $108.90 per month and using the better connection or
selling the routers and dropping back to the slower connection.
The performance benefits of the faster connection may be modest now, but once
the faster server is on line, the POTS Internet link would be an even more
severe bottleneck than it has been on the 260.
I hope we choose to keep the ISDN link and raise the additional money to cover
the difference from memberships. I guess it would take about 11 yearly
memberships to cover the unexpected ongoing costs.
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jared
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response 4 of 69:
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Dec 31 15:03 UTC 1997 |
I would double check the prices with someone, anyone able to look up what it's
tarrified for? If it's correct, pay it, keep it. The speed difference
is incredible.
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richard
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response 5 of 69:
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Dec 31 15:17 UTC 1997 |
does ameritech have any competition for local phone service in this
market? Maybe grex could have gotten a better ISDN offer from a smaller
company.
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jared
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response 6 of 69:
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Dec 31 17:01 UTC 1997 |
Can you check up on that richard?
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davel
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response 7 of 69:
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Dec 31 17:43 UTC 1997 |
heh
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dpc
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response 8 of 69:
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Dec 31 18:15 UTC 1997 |
Maybe M-Net's experience would be helpful. Ameritech installed a
128K ISDN line for us at the NEW Center on North Main, where the System
lives. They told Leeron Kopelman that the installation charge would
be $122. It turned out to be $200. We are paying that off in $50/mo
installments.
The monthly charge for this line varies between $35 and $50.
Even though we have a 2-channel 128K line, we have only been
able to get one channel to work regularly. People are still quibbling
about why. However, I do *not* think having only one channel working
is responsible for Ameritech billing us $35-$50/mo instead of the $110/mo
for 2 channels that Grex is paying.
It seems that Grex' situation, OTOH, is due to the fact that
Grex has two *separate* ISDN installations, one at the Pumpkin and one
at Dorians. That is, Grex has two installations, not two channels
per a single line.
Does this make sense?
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steve
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response 9 of 69:
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Jan 1 01:17 UTC 1998 |
I have the number of a person at the Michigan Public Service
Comission, who I will be calling next monday. Right now, enough
people have been out due to the holidays that it was basically
useless talking to them.
I am pissed as hell about this. In all the dealings I've done
with Ameritech (for myself, Grex, and other companies) this is the
most grand screwup I've yet seen. For a large business, the extra
cost isn't that bad. For a little organization like Grex, it's
not a small matter.
However, Grex can deal with this. Remember that currently we're
paying about $75 a month for the installation/moving costs when we
went to the Pumpkin. We'll be done with the last payment sometime
soon, and that $75 more than covers the exra cost of the ISDN line.
Is ISDN worth it? Sure. I can now to things remotely while at
work, rather than type a command and wait 20 seconds for the echo
back. It makes Grex worth visiting, I think. We have to keep the
ISDN line--in an era of ever increasing speeds, Grex has to keep
up a little, else we'll just be passed by.
I'll have more to say about this Monday evening.
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mdw
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response 10 of 69:
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Jan 1 02:59 UTC 1998 |
Just to make life more interesting, grex has centrex - which may or may
not make a difference regarding costs vs. m-net.
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aruba
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response 11 of 69:
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Jan 1 21:50 UTC 1998 |
I talked with scg about this last night, and he seemed to think that $54.45
per line per month was *not* a reasonable rate, and that it ought to be more
like $35. FWIW Here's the breakdown of the $54.45, as it appears on the
September phone bill:
No Description Qty USOC Monthly
-- ----------- --- ---- -------
2 AETCP Offset 1 SCFXE $.02
3 Access Charge per FCC order 1 9ZR $4.55
5 ISDN CKT SWITCH DATA B CHAN 2 BSB6X $7.50
6 ISDN-Circuit Switched Data Ln 2 LTQ6X $7.50
7 2-Wire Loop Assoc WH 2B1Q Line 1 P2B $10.03
8 ISDN Centrex - National 1 ZNZ $9.85
------
$54.45
And here are the installation charges:
No Description Qty Cost
-- ----------- --- -------
4 Line Connection Charge 1 $42.00
9 Installment Charge 2 $50.00
10 Installment Charge 1 $225.00
-------
$317.00
(Not much info there, I realize.) Note that to make the monthly costs add
up, you have to multiply each price by the quantity column. That's not
true of the installation charges, however. (Don't ask me, I just typed it
in.)
The story on the November bill was the same, as I recall, but STeve has
that bill now so I can't check it.
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scg
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response 12 of 69:
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Jan 2 05:26 UTC 1998 |
We should check Ameritech's tarrifs on this, since I'm pretty sure that's not
the right price. What we were told when we ordered the lines is in line with
all the other ISDN pricing I've ever seen. Also, it's what we were told when
we ordered the lines.
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aruba
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response 13 of 69:
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Jan 2 06:30 UTC 1998 |
So, if I understood you right, Steve, the tarrif specifies what rate Ameritech
must charge for our lines? Where do we get a copy of the tarrif?
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scg
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response 14 of 69:
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Jan 2 07:05 UTC 1998 |
The Michigan Public Service Commission should have the tarrifs. I can't find
it on their web site (http://ermisweb.state.mi.us/mpsc/comm/), but their
web site does have a phone number (517 334-6380), which is probably worth
calling.
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jared
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response 15 of 69:
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Jan 2 14:09 UTC 1998 |
hehe. we used to run the ermisweb machine.
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dpc
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response 16 of 69:
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Jan 2 16:30 UTC 1998 |
M-Net got *excellent* results when we asked the Michigan Public Service
Commission to fix a similar Ameritech mistake last spring.
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aruba
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response 17 of 69:
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Jan 2 22:41 UTC 1998 |
OK, I'll call Monday and ask for a copy of the tariff. Thanks Steve.
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lilmo
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response 18 of 69:
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Jan 3 20:36 UTC 1998 |
FWIW, someone whould prob talk to Ken, too.
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valerie
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response 19 of 69:
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Jan 4 07:13 UTC 1998 |
This response has been erased.
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aruba
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response 20 of 69:
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Jan 4 09:08 UTC 1998 |
BTW in case anyone is wondering, I went ahead and paid the bill for what
Ameritech said we owed. I know some of you, in my place, would have refused
to pay until we were absolutely sure we weren't being screwed. I was only
at the point where I thought it was a distinct possibility that it was our
mistake, not Ameritech's.
The thing is, I *really* don't like getting shutoff notices. Granted, we have
gotten several and Ameritech has never followed through on the threat
(usually because STeve got on their case when the notice came). But I worry
that we might not get through to them in time, or something, or they might
come at a time when no one is available to harass Ameritech. (In this
particular case, my talk with Shirley was December 23rd, and I was headed out
of town the next day. I was worried that a shutoff notice might come during
the week I was gone and then be implemented before I got it and had time to
alert STeve.)
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dpc
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response 21 of 69:
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Jan 4 18:56 UTC 1998 |
Paying was a good decision here, aruba. It's *possible* that we might
actually owe the billed amount. And if we win this argument, then
the disputed amount will be deducted.
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scg
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response 22 of 69:
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Jan 4 19:32 UTC 1998 |
They aren't allowed to shut us off if the unpaid amount is in disupte.
Unfortunately, they have much less of an incentive to pay attention to us now,
because they already have the money.
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aruba
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response 23 of 69:
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Jan 5 00:31 UTC 1998 |
It seems to me that Ameritech has done a number of things they're not
"allowed" to do, usually through mistakes. I'd rather face them from our
current position than have to explain to the users why I let things go so long
that they would shut us off.
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valerie
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response 24 of 69:
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Jan 5 15:52 UTC 1998 |
This response has been erased.
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