VOICE / LD
Multiple Long Distance Rate Plans – We offer the best selection of plans available to commercial businesses. We have pre-negotiated most of these plans along with their Terms and Conditions. We have fixed rate/blended plans with no short duration call penalties and no high cost route percentages. Every advantageous routing rate plan is available including: NPA NXX, NPA NXX X, OCN LATA and several additional customized rate plans for specialized business applications. 4 and 6 Digit Rounding is an important element that we have pre-negotiated so your company doesn’t have to bother. 6 second and 1 second billing plans (6/1) are available at extremely competitive rates. Our rate plans include TDM (T1, DS3, OC3, OC12) and SIP.
LD T1s for low cost long distance dialing. An LD T1 is probably the most misunderstood service in our industry. Most companies do not realize that they can save a lot of money if they have a high volume of long distance. An LD T1 is dedicated only for outbound long distance and inbound toll free service — all inbound and outbound for local calls are not supported on this circuit. LD T1s have been the main service used by high volume call centers for many years. We will provide some examples at the end of this section to help your company determine if dedicated LD is the way to go.
How do long distance T1s work? Simple – The LD T1 connects to your office telephone system just like any other Voice T1. The LD T1 is a direct connection to the long distance provider that supports all of your outgoing long distance calls and all of you incoming toll free calls. The number of outgoing and incoming simultaneous calls is either 24 or 23. A special signaling circuit called a PRI supports 23 calls and a standard circuit supports 24.
Your office telephone system is programmed to send only long distance calls over this LD T1 (local calls go out over your other circuits). The LD T1 cannot be called from a local number. It can only be called over the toll free circuits. This local restriction is planned and for a purpose. Our providers charge your company much less for an LD T1 because it completely bypasses the local telephone company. If you were able to call in or out locally on the dedicated LD T1, your company would be charged long distance rates for local calls.
How does your company decide if it needs LD t1s? It is a financial decision and it is dependent on the total amount of long distance the company uses on a monthly basis. There is a breakeven point for long distance and a very simple process to determine when your company is financially better off with LD T1 services.
The price of an LD T1 varies with the location where it is installed. Large cities and city centers are almost always less expensive than rural installations. We have many cities where the LD T1 will cost less than $75 per month. The cost per minute of your current carrier may be as high at $0.05 cents per minute for business service. The cost per minute on an LD T1 can be less than $0.005 (Yes – less than 1/2 of a penny per minute). In this example the savings per minute is about $0.045 cents per minute but your company must account for the cost of the LD T1 circuit. We divide $75 per month by the $0.045 cent per minute savings and we get the break even number of minutes at 1,667 per month.
It is as simple as this calculation. At these example numbers, everything above 1,667 minutes per month will begin to save $0.045 cents per minute. Every company does not have the high initial LD rate BUT we are continually amazed at how many do and how many are not using dedicated LD service. We have shown that a dedicated LD T1 can save you money but what about large circuits if you need them? You guessed it – they can save you even more money. The next sized voice circuit is a DS3. A DS3 will support up to 28 T1s and in markets where we have seen the dedicated T1 priced under $75 per month a DS3 can cost as little as $600 per month. Do the same math on this circuit and a T1 cost drops to under $22 per month and the number of minutes per month to break even is 13,333.
Not big enough for your company? How about an OC3? The OC3 supports three DS3s or the equivalent of 84 voice T1s and the price in the same area we used for the above examples – $400 per month with a break even number of minutes per month down at 8,889 minutes. OK…OK .. We hear you – there must be a catch right? Actually yes – but it has a technical solution. The pricing for a dedicated LD T1 we used – does include a termination device and it is plugged directly into your PBX, IP PBX or Predictive Dialer. The DS3 and OC3 require specialized equipment and there is an additional cost for that. We can help you with that equipment also. Sometimes, your company can lease the equipment but most of the time you would buy it. We have wholesale sources and are more than willing to help.