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November 25, 2008

Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Have you ever wanted to find a rate or a description for a USOC you see on a bill? It can be a little like finding a needle in a haystack, right? First you have the fact that many vendors use the same USOC to bill for many different rate elements. For instance, 1L5SX is a mileage charge which can assessed on a DS0, DS1, DS3 on multiple types of service. Try searching on that USOC and you'll be digging through the results for days.

So, how can you narrow down your search and try to find exactly the rate or description you're looking for? First of all, use your jurisdictional information to determine if this is going to be an FCC or State tariff. Most tariff sites have the capability to only search for a USOC within FCC or one state. Adding in this search criteria will greatly reduce the number of results you receive. Secondly, see if you can narrow down your Vendor. Some Vendors have been through so many acquisitions that it can be hard to know which name to search on, but after working with the Vendors a while, you can compile a list of applicable vendor names.

One thing to look out for when you are searching for USOCs is that zeroes and o's are often mixed up on the billing. So, while your bill may say '1OXTX', what is actually in the tariff is '10XTX'. Also, make sure that you are looking at the most up-to-date tariff information. Vendors routinely update their tariffs and you don't want to be looking at the wrong rate.

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