[asterisk-users] Becoming a CLEC

[Alex Balashov]

Worst reason to become a CLEC: improved cost structure.  Or, to be 
precise, it is a counterfactual reason, because it does not result in 
improved cost structure.

This idea is driven by an incomplete understanding of what being a 
CLEC entails, or, for the less critically thoughtful, the "free lunch" 
fallacy.  There is no free lunch.  There is no such thing as an 
easy-peasy regulatory reclassification that gets you the same stuff 
you were paying before, but more cheaply.

Becoming a CLEC is a totally different business model than the one 
you're in, and it entails magnitudinally more technological and 
regulatory complexity.  It's really almost a different vertical.  You 
should become a CLEC only if you want to become a CLEC, not if you 
want to be an ITSP with a lower cost basis, because you won't be.  It 
is a very capital-intensive, non-trivial endeavour with high barriers 
to entry for a good reason.  There will be people out there who will 
tell you that those barriers are low;  they are on the bridge of 
failing CLECs, treading water.

-- 
Alex Balashov - Principal
Evariste Systems LLC
260 Peachtree Street NW
Suite 2200
Atlanta, GA 30303
Tel: +1-678-954-0670
Fax: +1-404-961-1892
Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/