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February 11, 2009

The Eternal Search for an End Office?

Have you ever walked into your office at 9AM in a very pleasant mood, said, “Hello” to your office mate, and received a disgruntled and brief, “Hi”, in return? The type of “Hi” where your friend does not move his/her eyes off the computer screen, even for a brief second, to acknowledge your existence. A greeting that actually says, “Don’t bother me right now, I can’t find what I am looking for, and I am about to erupt.” Don’t be offended, your office mate is simply trying to validate an end office location.

When auditing dedicated circuits for mileage and BIP, the end office location is essential. When auditing independent vendors, it is rare to find the end office location populated on the invoice, often times the ACTL and MUX are populated while the end office location is omitted. Additionally, even if the information is populated on the invoice, it is imperative that an auditor double check the location’s validity as this location information is coming from the very vendor under audit.

The ASR (Access Service Request) and C.O. Finder are useful tools when attempting to validate end office information. First, view the ASR and find the CILLI or NPA-NXX for the end office. Second, input the data into C.O. Finder in order to validate mileage and BIP. Sometimes this is easier said than done. In many cases CILLI codes or NPA-NXX codes are not provided for the end office. Never fear, you have not yet hit the proverbial brick wall.

In most cases the “Address Detail Section” of the ASR will provide some seemingly hidden end office location information. An auditor can combine the “SANO”, “SASN”, “SATH”, “CITY”, “STATE”, and “ZIP” fields and come up with address information such as, “738 Lee Highway, Roanoke, Va., 24019”. Next, the auditor can input this address information into CO Finder’s Location Finder application, search the address, and record the latitude and longitude assigned to the address under search. Finally, the latitude and longitude information can be plugged into CO Finder, just as a CILLI code or an NPA-NXX are under standard practice, in order to find the closest CO.

The search for an end office location might not always be easy, but it certainly is not eternal.

February 10, 2009

Tandem Overflow from Direct End Office Trunks

Direct End Office Trunks (DEOTs) are more economical than paying for traffic to route through a tandem office. Tandem switching, tandem trunk terminations and tandem transport charges are avoided if calls are routed instead to Direct End Office trunks. The average minutes of use per month carried over a DS1 (24 channel) DEOT is about 230,000 MOU per month, with a high of around 280,000 MOU and a low of around 165,000 MOU. DS1 DEOTs are economical with as few as 110,000 MOU per month to an end office, depending on the cost of a DS1 DEOT versus tandem switching charges.

DEOTs carry more or less traffic in a month depending on whether traffic is relatively even throughout the month, or if it peaks at different times of the month. If an end office serves an optimum mixture of Business customers (use the network during the day) and Residential customers (use the network in the evenings), then the DEOT will carry more MOU per month than an office lacking Bus/Res balance.

All traffic in and out of Host – Remote clusters transports through the Host office. So, the overflow traffic could look excessive for the Host office by itself, but look reasonable when the usage for the Remote offices is added to the total.

February 03, 2009

A dollar in the hand. . .

Many companies find that filing paid disputes can be a safer way to deal with their vendors. They feel that it keeps the dispute negotiations from moving to disconnect letters or freezing of provisioning orders. In my experience, it also limits your negotiating power and will negatively impact the amount of the final settlement. Having the money in your bank puts the vendor at a disadvantage and can often influence their settlement offers.

It is imperative that you consult the vendor’s tariff, usually in the Obligation of the Customer section, prior to withholding monies. The vendor’s approved tariff may give them the authorization to demand full payment pending resolution.
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