Date: Fri, 04 Sep 92 20:27:47 GMT
From: toddi@mav.com (Todd Inch)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: ANI Long Distance Service: Okay or Beware?
Organization: Maverick International Inc.
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 685, Message 1 of 10

In article <telecom12.659.8@eecs.nwu.edu> Irving_Wolfe@happy-man.com
writes:

> I've been approached by a company called ANI (through a man in Chicago
> who apparently is a personal salesman for them, operating out of his
> own space) to change my business long distance service to ANI.  He
> claims that AT&T would still be carrying the calls but that I'd save
> 20% or so (on a $250 or so long distance bill) by using them instead.

> Does anyone know these guys?  Are they okay?

> Does what they said make sense?  Why would AT&T carry my calls for 
> 20% below its own ProWatts rates through them?  

> What's the catch?

There are actually two possibilities.  Probably ANI is an "aggregator"
a term which apparently only applies to AT&T because their tarrifs are
different than MCI, Sprint, etc.

Another possibility is that ANI has their own switch and gets volume
discounts for their outgoing calls.  In this case, you usually have to
dial the 800 or a local number for the company, then enter your
account number/pin, then enter the destination phone number.  A kludge
indeed.

But, these "resellers" (my term, probably incorrect) usually get the
best price they can and may have trunks to all of the big three, so if
they mentioned AT&T specifically, I doubt this is what you're working
with.

The one reseller who tried to sell me on this tried to act like he was
a IXC (Interexchange carrier, e.g. AT&T, MCI, etc) but when I
specifically asked what his business was classified as and gave
"aggregator" and "IXC" as examples, he was confused and said he was
just a "phone company" -- and he was the sole proprietor, as far as I
could tell!  American Sharecom used to be one of these.

The quality of the reseller's service will be low because they have to
add at least one extra switch between you and your destination.

The reseller salesperson/owner tried to make dialing the 14 or so
extra digits and lack of one-plus dialing (he doesn't have
arrangements with the local telco to offer one-plus dialing) a
"feature" because you can keep your existing long distance company for
"emergencies".  It really spurred him on that soon our company will
have a smart enough PBX to automatically dial the 14 digits for us.

They had some really screwy plans, primarily for residential and
smaller businesses, where you could make up to X number of calls per
month, each up to one hour.  He said you COULD NOT go beyond the
limits of your plan. I didn't ask if the switch would drop your call
after one hour and your billing number was locked out after X calls,
or if he just stung you with enormous "overtime" rates.  He claimed a
lot of residential customers like having a fixed LD phone bill each
month rather than one which always changes depending on the number of
calls, etc.

The final scary straw was that the contract read that you were
responsible for all calls charged to your billing number REGARDLESS of
anything.  It implied that security was so good on their end that if
there was a problem it was your fault.  I didn't even ask about such
amenities as credit for wrong numbers ... I had to hang up on him
mid-sentence when he wouldn't take "no" for an answer.

(Switching gears back to the aggregator now ...)

I did a little research after an aggregator approached our company.  I
found:

AT&T accidentally or otherwise wrote a loophole into their tarrifs such
that a bunch of small companies can form a "co-op" (or some other legal
entity consisting of a loose relationship -- I don't know the proper
term) and volume discounts apply to the co-op's volume rather than the
individual companies volumes, even though the companies are billed 
individually and have different AT&T accounts.

The aggregator either is the co-op or at least runs it.  The physical
lines, dialing instructions, and relationship between a company and
AT&T is the same whether businesses work with AT&T directly or are
part of the "co-op".  The aggregator has NO telecom equipment
whatsoever, they just write up contracts and inform AT&T that you're
part of them now.

So, if ANI is an aggregator, and you're already with AT&T, it's not a
matter of changing your LD to ANI, but rather adding ANI in.  Your LD
is still actually provided by AT&T.

In our case, we were warned that our actual sales rep at AT&T may
change because being part of the aggregator/co-op would make us a
different class of business (e.g. change from minor accounts to major
corporate accounts or somesuch) but I was told by both the aggregator
and AT&T themselves that essentially nothing would change except the
rates - billing is still from AT&T.  I can't remember if the
aggregator charges a percentage of total, percentage of savings, or
flat rate, but I recall that in our case the proposed gross savings
would be about 30%, of which we would keep 20% and the aggregator
would keep about 10%.

BUT, the salesperson did mention something offhandedly that caused me
to look at the contract a little closer.  Apparently if the co-op goes
bankrupt, the co-op members may be liable for debts.  I'm a little
fuzzy on this, but I'd have a lawyer look over the aggregator
contract.  Otherwise it looked like a legitimate good deal to me.