Changing our ISDN lines so they're not on our centrex

Jul 24 03:46 UTC 1998

At the board meeting last night I was given the mission of finding out if
we could reduce the cost of our ISDN lines.  It was an interesting
experience.

I called Shirley Russell, who has helped us in the past with our ISDN issues.  
Unfortunately I don't know if she's still doing the same thing anymore, 
because instead of her I got a woman named Joyce in Wisconsin.  Joyce 
explained that a lot of the traffic that used to go to Shirley's office in 
Saginaw is now going to Wisconsin.

So I told Joyce our story about how our ISDN lines are on our centrex system, 
and we think we're paying too much as a result, and we'd like to get a quote 
for how much they would cost if they were regular lines (and what the 
installation charges would be).  She put me on hold several times before 
deciding I needed to talk to the "Michigan Special Services" division. 

So she transferred me to Jane at Michigan Special Services.  Jane listened to 
my story, and looked up our account and figured out which of our lines were 
the ISDNs.  She said she didn't think we'd save any money by taking them off 
centrex, but the people I really ought to talk to are at the ISDN Provisioning 
Center.  So she transferred me.

After going through a couple of "Press one for ..." menus, I got another
woman on the phone and told her our story, though she could barely hear me
because the connection was faint.  She didn't waste time looking up our
account, because her office apparently doesn't give out quotes, but only
does hookups.  She said I needed to talk to their Team Data division, so
she transferred me. 

Then I got Angie at Team Data.  She asked me "Why is this connection so
bad?  Were you transferred?"  And I proceeded to tell her the story of the
8x10 color glossy photos... And she stopped me right there and said Kid,
"Let me call you back." 

I gave her my number and she called back, and the line was much better.  I 
told her our story and she began to look things up.  After I told her the name 
of our company was Cyberspace Communications, she asked me if we were an ISP.  
I was surprised that she asked, and I told her no, we are an online community 
based in Ann Arbor with a lot of local users as well as users on the net.

By then she had looked up a price, and she quoted me a monthly rate of $84.24 
for our lines, if they weren't on centrex.

Of course the trouble with numbers like that is that it's hard to tell what 
they include.  I had spent the past 3 days typing our old phone bills into 
Excel and breaking them down into their component parts, so I knew that the 
total they are costing us now is $124.26 per month.  But I didn't know if her 
number was comparable to mine.  The conversation proceeded something like 
this:

Me:     "Is that for both lines?"
Angie:  "Yes."
Me:     "Does that include taxes, and the federal line charge?"
Angie:  "No.  If you give me your fax number I can send you just what I have 
         so you can compare it with what you have."
Me:     "I'm sorry, I don't have a fax machine.  You see, Grex is run by 
         volunteers; we have a room where we keep the computers, but not an 
         office."
Angie:  "So you're at home?"
Me:     "Yes."
Angie:  "Well, where are you?"
Me:     "Uh...  Well, I'm in Ann Arbor."
Angie:  "What are your cross streets?"

(I couldn't think why she wanted to know that, so I was imagining that 
Ameritech might have some sort of satellite delivery system that could beam 
the document from wherever she was right into my home.)

Me:     "Well, I'm near the corner of Maple and Pauline."
Angie:  "Well I'm near Packard and Stadium, so the document should be able to 
         get to you by osmosis if not by fax."
Me:     "Oh!" (stammering) "You mean I could come over and get it?"
Angie:  "Sure."

And she gave me her home address, which is where she works.  I brought a disk 
with my spreadsheets on it and put it into her laptop, so we could compare my 
numbers to hers.  I'll post the results in the next response.

I ended up telling her about Grex and showing her our web page.  I told her 
about the Saturday morning Grexwalks, and she sounded very interested.  I 
showed her the map Steve Weiss drew to show where we meet in Gallup park, and 
she sounded like she might come!  I also showed her the ad in the Observer, 
where it says that all are welcome.

All in all, I just can't get over the feeling that this was far and away the 
best Ameritech experience I have ever had!

response 2 of 18:

Jul 24 03:50 UTC 1998

BTW Angie also gave me the URL for Team Data - it's
        http://www.ameritech.com/teamdata
and if you select "Online Electronic Information" followed by
"Over 100 documents online", you can find rate information for ISDN lines.

response 4 of 18:

Jul 24 14:20 UTC 1998

The federal line charge is not a tax, I don't think.  One reason I think so is
that we pay tax on it!  (Both federal and state.)  So I don't think it will
go away.

response 8 of 18:

Aug 3 02:28 UTC 1998

So far no one seems to appreciate the humor in the situation I described in
#0.  Perhaps you had to be there.  :)

response 10 of 18:

Aug 3 05:37 UTC 1998

PBX stands for Private Brance eXchange.  It's the sort of phone system lots
of companies have, which generally has an internal each phone and then some
much smaller number of outside lines that get assigned to a phone
automatically when there is an incoming or outgoing call.  If you call
somebody and get one of those menus (press 1 for sales, etc.) you are calling
through a PBX.  PBX's also usually have lots of other cool features, such as
letting people within the company call eachother with extention numbers,
without having to get the phone company involved, and letting people transfer
calls around easily.

Centrex could probably best be described as a virtual PBX.  It does not
involve any additional equipment in your building, as it is entirely handled
in hte phone switch.  From a practical standpoint it is a bunch of individual
phone lines, set up such that you can call other lines in your Centrex system
by dialing an extention number (usually the last 3-5 digits of the phone
number), forward calls around, do conferencing within the Centrex fairly
easily, program your own hunt group order, place restrictions on which lines
can make what sorts of phone calls, and all sorts of other stuff that would
otherwise require a PBX.  From Grex's perspective, there are two important
benefits to Centrex.  One is that we can block outgoing calls on the modem
lines as a security measure, and the other is that after some number of lines
Centrex becomes slightly cheaper than regular lines.

response 12 of 18:

Aug 3 15:28 UTC 1998

We want to be absolutely sure that no one can exploit some (unknown) security
hole and dial out on one of our modems.

response 14 of 18:

Aug 4 03:15 UTC 1998

https://www.usabestnet.com/realdeal/wwnet/

response 16 of 18:

Aug 8 02:05 UTC 1998

Ah!  I made a mistake with the numbers I posted in #1.  It appears that they
were correct through February, but starting in March one of those 7.50x4
charges went away.  Since the difference was $30, which is divisible by 15, I
had assumed the change was a decreas in the rate of our regular lines, but
I got someone at Ameritech to break down our bill for me today, and discovered 
that I was wrong.  The upshot is that the correct numbers for what we're
paying now are:

Item                          Num     Per   Price  S Tax  F Tax
----                          ---  ------  ------  -----  -----
AETCP offset                    2   $0.02   $0.04  $0.00  $0.00   $0.04
ISDN CKT SWITCH DATA B CHAN     4   $7.50  $30.00  $1.80  $0.90  $32.70
2-Wire Loop Assoc WH 2B1Q Line  2  $10.03  $20.06  $1.20  $0.60  $21.87
ISDN Centrex - National         2   $9.85  $19.70  $1.18  $0.00  $20.88
Federal line charge             2   $5.42  $10.84  $0.65  $0.33  $11.82
ISDN BRI No PIC Federal Charge  4   $0.98   $3.92  $0.24  $0.12   $4.27

                                           $84.56  $5.07  $1.95  $91.58

So it looks like we are actually paying less than what Angie quoted me.

response 18 of 18:

Dec 17 22:54 UTC 1999

**ROFL**  Oh, man, stop it, I'm in a library!  *giggle*