Overcharged on Your Telephone Bill?

Recently, while reviewing a prospects Verizon bill, I was reminded that not everyone knows what we at Atlantech Online know about phone service. If you’ve been with your carrier for a long time, you may still be charged for services that are no longer needed, no longer charged for by most carriers and perhaps not even still available to you. But since you never cancelled them, they keep charging you! So, if you get one thing out of this blog post… please… PLEASE have us review your phone bill so we can help you save some money.

There are four types of calls that can all have an impact on your legacy carrier phone bill.

International Long Distance: These are any calls made outside of the United States. The secret to saving money is to block this feature if you’re not using it. At Atlantech Online, we block these calls by default unless a customer signs a release for us to turn it on. 

Domestic Long Distance: This includes the calls between states, also known in the telecom world as Interstate or InterLATA calls. Customers may not realize that if they’ve been with the same service provider for an extended period of time, they could be paying double, triple, or more than the going rates for long distance service! At Atlantech Online, domestic long distance calling is provided at no additional charge. So if you call Bethesda, MD… or Burbank, CA… it doesn’t matter. There will be no difference on your telephone bill.

Local: These are calls that go from one place in a county to another place in the same county (like if you called from Silver Spring to Clarksburg). These are calls that usually start and terminate in the same LATA; therefore, these are called IntraLATA calls. On many phone bills I’ve seen, Verizon still charges customers for these calls. At Atlantech Online, there is no additional fees for these type of calls.

Remote Call Forwarding (RCF) InterLATA: Imagine you have an office in Bethesda and decide to relocate to Ellicott City (which is in a different calling zone or LATA) but want to keep the same phone number. Remote Call Forwarding allows your customers to call your old number from your Bethesda location but reach you at your new number in Ellicott City. With local number portability (LNP), these types of problems can be eliminated when using Altantech Online. Again, with our service, all local and domestic long distanced calling is included. And we can transfer your number from any carrier.

Directory Assistance: Known to the regular people as 411, customers often don’t realize that they can block this feature. Every time your employee uses Directory Assistance instead of using Google to loop up a numbers, they’re costing you $1.50 (at a minimum). While this cost may seem minor to some, over time it could add up to something substantial. 

CustoPAK (by Verizon): These are additions that customers often opt into not realizing that their VoIP phone system, such as a Cisco Broadsoft PBX, already performs these exact services. It generally involves Automatic Call Back, Call Forwarding, Call Hold, Call Transfer, Speed Calling, Three Way Calling, as well as other services. 

Verizon Sentry II Enhanced Mtce Svc-Centex: This is an opt-in charge for line maintenance (repairing the phone cabling within your building) that you really don’t need. With Atlantech Online service, you won’t need this as your data and voice networks are converged.

“Miscellaneous Charges”: Have you ever seen Enhanced Services Billing Inc. (or ESBI) or Transaction Clearing on your phone bill? These are two companies that are allowed to access your bill without your permission. Costing between $15-20 for each, these items can be taken off of your bill with a simple phone call to your provider. 

You look at your check at the end of a big family meal at your favorite restaurant. Why don’t you look over your telephone bill, or better yet, have experts like Atlantech Online, who know the jargon, to look it over you. You’ll be glad you did.