[asterisk-biz] CLEC formation was Re: MagicJack

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On Tue, 2008-03-25 at 16:35 +0000, nigel.dennis at sympatico.ca wrote:
> Google: eric brown clec  click on ADT letter  or Clec report and see some of 
> the things going on with individuals in the business.


It was ADT that I had heard of and some plan he had, which seemed to
rely upon carriers less than robust billing systems for flat rate
tollfree service that I had seen in the past.  Basically what he was
advertising was a very cheap flat rate almost unlimited channel tollfree
line, based around the fact that many CLECs do not bill for certain
charges they could.  So in each of the 209 LATAs you arrange to have a
CLEC there be responsible for the tollfree, which gives you effectively
a free one.  

The whole thing seemed dodgy to me, why I never did it, because they
dont bill today but nothing stops them from billing tomorrow and you
could have built a business on that and end up paying a ton in unplanned
expenses for calls.  

If a carrier does not want to bill for certain things that is their
choice, and I have no problem using their service, even if its at a loss
to that carrier.  Companies often sell products below cost as a loss
leader. In my past I did not have a problem buying mp3 players below
cost and selling them on ebay, I see the two as the same.  Phone minutes
are a commodity the same as real products, other than for a carrier its
use it or lose it, unused capacity is in essence wasted and to recapture
some of that by wholesaling minutes below cost, still provides income to
the company.  A loss of $500 is not as bad as a loss of $1000 ...

Its when you dont have a contracted price that causes problems for me
because of the potential for a surprise bill that would mean filing
bankruptcy if it happened in many places at the same time.

Yes its not difficult to either be a resporg or hire a 3rd party resporg
and insert routing data that would make calls go over a carrier they
ordinarily wouldnt go over, and that carrier may not know that its
tollfree traffic so they may not bill for it.  I do not know if Eric
Brown/ADT did this without the knowledge of the carriers, or if the
tollfree traffic was agreed upon, I never got far enough in the
discussions to tell.  

I do know for example that XO years ago had a problem where they couldnt
tell it was a tollfree if you use a 3rd party resporg and route it to
one of their DIDs.  They would then bill you as if its a normal inbound
phone call.  This demonstrates that its not only small carriers that may
have this weakness.  However to take advantage of this is a gamble, as
they may detect it and back bill for the traffic or it may be illegal (I
can see a fairly well formed argument for toll fraud in this situation
since you are avoiding fees you would otherwise have to pay, which is
the tariff definition of toll fraud in most tariffs, and generally in
the law).

It seems however that ADT had other issues as well based on what I read.
And while I did not click on every link, this particular sales item did
not seem to be mentioned, although it was advertised on this list a few
years ago.
 
-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
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