Recently I was installing a new PBX (phone system) at UCAN. Being a phone geek, I always have my phone-guy test set (known to phone-guys as a "butt set" because it lets you "butt-in" on, or even monitor, a conversation) with me so I connected it to each of the terminals on the connection block in UCANs suite. Much to my surprise, there were more active lines (pairs of wire with dialtone) than anyone knew about. A call to Cox, the UCAN dialtone provider, determined that, yes, there were two pairs of lines that we hadn't accounted for and also some services or Features that UCAN didn't need.

This happens a lot. When a business first gets started they know how many lines they want and what features (services like CallerID, Call Forwarding, voicemail, etc) they want. But over time, as staff members and phone vendors come and go, things get forgotten. And while it's fairly easy to search for phone lines because they are actual things that can be seen, features are really just concepts - you can't touch or connect to a "Remote Call Forarding" charge. The bigger your business is the more likely it is for these things to be forgotten and add up and the typical phone bill doesn't make plain what you've got AND no phone verndor that I know of is going to be proactive and call you and say "Do you know you have a phone line that's not been used in 3 years? Still want it?".

Time For An Audit
Now, while your home or business is trying to cut back, is a good time to do a telecom audit. Start with your bill and try to determine how many lines you are being billed for. If you can't decipher the bill, call your carrier and ask them to go over it with you. You can also check your Customer Service Record, a sheet that vendors must send to customers once a year. Cox was very helpful and, once I explained what I was doing, they went beyond simply cancelling the lines I pointed out - they mentioned other things I might not want for my client (UCAN).

Also check for features you may not need. We discovered that the 7 POTS (Plain Ol' Telephone Lines) that UCAN has via Cox all had Call Transferring on them. This is a nice thing to have if each line is connected directly to a couple of phones. But Call Transferring, 3-way Calling, Conferencing, and Call Waiting are worthless if the lines with these features connect to a phone system.

Another thing we found was that the Fraud Squad line was being Call Forwarded. This means it's a full fledged phone line but calls coming to it were being sent to the main UCAN line and its dialtone, which was being paid for, was not being used. Again, when UCAN had no PBX, this was useful because it allowed the staff to, when necessary, send Fraud Squad calls to the main number. Once I discovered its existence and turned off the Forwarding, UCAN actually wound up with an 8th phone line on their PBX for no new fees - and they stopped paying the Forwarding feature monthly charge. I like being a hero!

You might have a Remote Call Forwarding account you've forgotten about. Similar to Call Forwarding, this is a very useful feature for some purposes. It lets you have a phone number but not pay the full cost of an actual line. Calls to this number are routed to another number that the caller is unaware of. Ask if you have any and then determine if they're actually being used or are dormant.

If you're technically inclined, feel free to snoop around your MPOE (where the lines come in to your building) if you are the only tenant. If you share the building, be careful while snooping because you could affect someone else's service. You could just limit your snooping to your own suite's "phone closet". Use a professional test set (butt-set) or make an adaptor for a plain old phone (a modular jack with a couple wires hanging out). CAUTION: while the standing "battery" on the line is 48v typically and the highest voltage that can be present is about 90v during current, and while these are current-limited voltages, they can still give you an unpleasant shock depending on conditions.

If you're not so technical, just call a phone-guy whose hour-or-so of snooping could easily pay for itself if things are found that you can cancel.

There are services out there who, for a percentage of your savings, will go thru your bills for you and not only find unused lines and features but potentially offer suggestions for lower local and long distance services. I don't know any to refer so check around and be sure that they aren't resellers for a particular carrier and might have a bias.

Many business telephone providers (PaeTec, TelePacific, Cox, Time Warner, AT&T, CBeyond, etc) will, if they think they might be able to get your business, do a free audit for you. Give them a couple of months' worth of bills and they will "show" you how they can save you money. Their main focus is rate plans but they can also look for numbers of lines and features to see if you still need them. Again, they have an obvious bias but they're not going lie about their findings.

The Bottom "Line"
When the Cox rep and I were done, we had cancelled

• 2 phone lines:    Maybe $30 each
• 7 Call Transfer features:  Maybe $2 each
• 1 Call Forwarding feature:  Maybe $2

for something like a $75 a month cost reduction AND they wound up with an 8th phone line.

Write to me here at http://www.ucan.org/internet_media/broadband_isps/ask_dr_telecom_the_com... if you see anything unusual on your bill. I can't go thru everyone's bill but I might be able to sort out some oddities that would help other readers.