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March 23, 2009

A channel termination or a cross connect charge?

This is a common discrepancy that comes up many times on facility access bills. Many auditors and vendors know that a channel termination charge is not applicable if a CFA for that location is populated on the ASR. Also, if the NCI code has a Q as the 3rd character (ex; 04QB6.33) then this would designate that a cross connect is being ordered, not a channel termination. Sometimes vendors will agree that they should have only been billing a cross connect in these cases which makes your life as an auditor very easy. Other times, however, they will quickly deny the dispute and claim they do not have expanded interconnection in that area and/or they do not have a cross connect rate in their Tariff. I came across this issue recently with Windstream Communications where they claimed they did not have the xconn rates in their Tariff. Ironically enough, the new Tariff that just came out (FCC #6) now contains these cross connect rates. This will give more leverage to anyone who needs to dispute channel termination charges for this reason. The difference in price is substantial between these two charges, so as it might take some persistence, the pay off could be very well worth it in the end.

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March 18, 2009

What's in a NPA-NXX

Have you ever been auditing a switched access bill and found yourself wondering what version of the LERG or NECA the vendor is utilizing because what you see in the those reference databases isn’t even close to what is appearing on the vendor’s invoice? More specifically, the NPA-NXX and CLLI combinations do not match what is in the LERG or NECA, making it next to impossible to try to do any sort of analysis on the usage.

This can happen because there are some vendors that have internal tables that are utilized in the invoicing process. These proprietary tables are used to derive a CLLI code based on an NPA-NXX. The CLLI/NPA-NXX combination that is the output of the internal look-up process may or may not match what is in the LERG or NECA. So in order to be able to effectively audit the usage and perform a true apples to apples comparison, you will need to reach out to the vendor to request a copy of their internal table(s) used to populate the CLLI/NPA-NXX combinations on the invoices. This table will then need to be incorporated into the appropriate usage analytics tool. Once the table has been loaded, the appropriate reports can be run to perform the required analysis on the usage.

So the next time that you’re running into issues matching an invoice to LERG or NECA, you may want to reach out to the vendor that is being audited to check to see if they have an internal information that will help facilitate the usage audit process.

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March 16, 2009

So Many Miles, So Little Time

Mileage can be calculated in mass through formulas using V-H coordinates for End Offices, rather than looking up mileage individually with an industry tool. The V-H coordinates can be found in LERG 7 or NECA tables and a table with V-H coordinates can be produced for any given invoice by joining either the CLLI code or NPA-NXX to LERG 7 or NECA. The mileage is then calculated using the formula provided in NECA No. 4, Section 11.

- There are cases where there is no exact match for the CLLI code in the LERG/NECA tables. In these cases, check first 8 characters of the CLLI code (Building Code). If there is no match, then an industry software tool may be the best bet to verify mileage.
- The square root function forces basic rounding (i.e. <0.5 rounds down). A ceiling function can be used to force rounding up, to eliminate disputes that are off by 1 mile or less.

Using this method, mileage can be verified for a large number of invoice entries very quickly. Then only the discrepancies need to be manually verified.

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More than just NECA

When looking for tariffs for smaller ILECs, most people are familiar with the National Exchange Carrier Association (NECA). However, this is not the only name in Carrier Association tariffs. ICORE, Inc contains interstate tariffs for various vendors throughout Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Minnesota. Likewise, John Staurulakis, Inc. has interstate tariffs for multiple vendors based mostly in the Carolinas. On the intrastate tariff side, many states have cooperatives or associations as well for the local ILECs. These include the Michigan Exchange Carrier Association, the Washington Exchange Carrier Association, the Pennsylvania Telephone Association, and the Nebraska Independent Telephone Association, to name just a few.

You can’t find individual tariffs for any of these vendors on Tariff sites like CCMI; you won’t even find any helpful concurrence pages to point you in the right direction. Having foreknowledge of these additional groups could save you a lot of time and frustration when researching independent carriers.

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March 05, 2009

It’s All about Elements

Comparing billed quantities of different elements from switched access usage bills can provide important clues to various dispute opportunities. As a first example, if you already know an end office had been setup for direct end office trunking, the you know the routing bypasses a tandem and directly connects to an IXC POP. The correct billing scenario should then illustrate less transport minutes than local switching minutes. Create a cross tab report where local switching and transport minutes are listed side by side; where you know a DEOT exists, yet see no variance in quantities may lead to the conclusion that a dispute is in order. Doing similar analyses would also help you find wireless insertion dispute opportunities. Local providers generally do not provide end office and common line functionalities for wireless traffic. Thus, if the provider bills the wireless traffic and populates the true originating wireless end office, creating the same cross tab report will demonstrate the relationship between local switching minutes and transport minutes, and if there are any local switching minutes and its associated charges present on the bill, it may be a dispute opportunity.

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Keeping Track of Your Contracts

Utilizing special contracts when purchasing circuits is a fantastic way for the buyer to save money. Often times, the contract applies to only the circuits purchased at the start of the contract, however there are a few that allow future qualifying purchases to bill under the contract as well. Keeping track of which circuit is on which contract is a key component in ensuring that the circuit is billing correctly, and is as easy as checking the CNUM FID on your CSR.

CNUM stand for Contract NUMber, and is the easiest way to look at a circuit and instantly know which contract you need to find, and where to find it. This FID is usually found when looking at CSRs from major RBOCs like the SBC companies Pac Bell, Southwestern Bell, and Ameritech. Once you've found the CNUM, you can determine the tariff you'll need. The CNUM is simply the Tariff number and subsequent sections in one string of numbers. For example, if on a Pac Bell CSR you are reviewing a circuit and see the CNUM 13321, this means the contract this circuit is billing under is located in FCC #1, Section 33.21. Likewise, if you are looking at a SNET CSR, and see CNUM 392519, you would find this contract in FCC #39, Section 25.19.

Now that you know exactly where you need to look, you can spend your time making sure the circuit is billing correctly and fits the criteria to be on this contract, rather than trying to find out which portion of the tariff you should be looking for.

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