[Asterisk-Users] OT: PRI costs in US

[tmassey at obscorp.com]

asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com wrote on 03/03/2003 12:25:11 AM:

> On Sun, 2003-03-02 at 05:40, tmassey at obscorp.com wrote:
> > I've heard others say that PRI becomes cost 
> > effective in the 8 line range, but the cost for the office with 14 
lines 
> > ($25/line * 14 lines) is only $350.  It would take 22 lines before the 
PRI 
> > would equal the cost of individual POTS lines!
> 
> My guess is you have some steeply discounted analog lines already. The
> rule of thumb in my area is business lines are ~2x more than residential
> lines. Residential lines here start around $18, business around $36,
> home ISDN $50, business ISDN $90.

Maybe I should quit complaining already!  The average business customer 
pays somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 base per plain (non-Centrex, 
etc.) analog line here.  ISDN is $60 if you don't sign up for 3 years, or 
about the same price.

As for CLEC's, I've called a couple of big ones (AT&T and Sprint) and a 
couple of little ones (LDMI and one other).  They were all within 
$100/month of each other for PRI, and none offered BRI.

> You and probably most of it's subscribers especially after they went to
> the regulators and said they wouldn't spend money upgrading their
> network unless they could stop selling their services to CLECS. I have
> yet to hear a good review of SBC unless you have spent in excess of 3
> months of letter writing to regulatory officials, elected officials, and
> coping those letters to C?O level members of SBC. 

It's even worse.  They've been running ads on local television saying that 
"the big phone companies" have been fighting to keep them out of the long 
distance market and that people should contact their congressman to 
complain...  As if they weren't doing everything they could to prevent 
"the big phone companies" from offering local service...

Sigh.

I guess I should just grin and bear it.  I guess my best option might be 
to just convert two of their analog lines to a single BRI and use that on 
an emergency basis for Internet.  If I can make it part of their roll-over 
lines, etc...

If anyone else has any ideas, I'd greatly appreciate hearing them!

Tim Massey