Which telco providers would you recommend ?

[chefwong]

I'm more of a *data* guy but I'm looking to bring a PRI circuit . I am debating whether to go with a traditional TDM Intergrated T1 via 12 channels voice/12 date or tentatively a DYNAMIC T1 with voice.

On the Intergrated T1 I am looking at providers such as TNCI, Paetec, MCI, ATT, etc.

Dynamic T1 - I am looking at Qwest, XO and Paetec.

Love to hear some feedback on opinions, experience, etc from these providers.

 

[kwing112000]

what area are you in. One communications (Used to be CTC) has a good set up and they have good customer service. XO is usually tuff to get up and running then once it is up they are ok. I have alot of customers on Paetec and have not had many issues. They all have there downfalls. Usually if you pay a little more than the lowest you get a little better service when there is a problem. I always tell my customers that the T1/PRI will go down at some point and you will need good customer support.

 

[1043]

I wouldn't use "Choice One" now One Communication if my life depended on it. The New AT&T sux as well.

 

[GHTROUT]

My provider of choices if usualy the one with the deepest pockets. Prices are always negotiable.

The very best and the very worst carriers both have networks capable of performing near flawlessly - the "flaw" is personel, which tend to turn over, changing the good to the bad and so on.

The "deep pockets" factor is often the difference between throwing a lot of resources at a problem ~ or "waiting for that one smart guy to get back from vacation", so to speak.



~

http://www.GHTROUT.com/

 

[aarenot]

i would not put my name on a recomendation of any telco providor. that said, if your phone system vendor resells telco services, they will probably get a better response as they have a multiple account relationship with the telco. that is my best advice, and i do have better response from the telco, when i can call our regional sales rep., or district sales manager, when their is an issue, or an expedite needed.

personal relationships do have their advantages.

 

[orypecos]

Both Qwest and XO use contractors for much of their staff and there is a lot of turn over due to terrible management practices. I would avoid them both if U want to avoid getting a trainee many times your system are down.

 

[doktor]

I agree with "aarenot". Try to have as few suppliers as possible. In the telco world choose one supplier for the PBX and data solution, if possible, and the same for the T1 lines (or other WAN/voice lines).
Then you will have a single point of contact if (when) a fault occurs on your tele/data system.
If more suppliers were used for your system, you will have to call all these to point out where the actual fault is, and then argue with maybe several of the suppliers, which of them have to correct the fault.
These problems can be saved for you by choosing as few as possible suppliers. (Finding the right one can be difficult).
///doktor

 

[chefwong]

Actually I have a pretty good relationships with my brokers - channel managers. The most surprising was XO ! I had a chronic that went on for 3-4 weeks ! I was up to my neck with the constant dropping and my XO rep came back to me and wrote off 2 months of service -----even though as most issues go, it was a local loop issue.

This may be a better question. Most SLA's only cover up to the local loop. However, if you get a *managed service* which always costs more, most ISP's will SLA even the local loop. Is this common in the industry ? I never bought a managed service as I usually do all the hardware internally but I noticed this recently when I got a quote from ATT

 

[aarenot]

when i have had issues with telco services that we were the reseller for, and have had the opportunity[need] to speak with the sales rep, or channel manager for our reseller relationship, and have referred to the customer as 'our' customer. i have often found that the technician i speak to for some reason makes it a point to refer to the customer when speaking to me as 'our' customer, and they seem to have a more cooperative attitude.

i do also feedback to the channel manager when i get good service from a technician, or good issue resolution results. i mention the technician, sales channel rep., their good response, and the fact that i also mentioned thier excellent performance to 'our' customer. i do not make it up, but when i get what i want, need, or desire for 'our' customer and feel the telco response was above average it seems to make the telco we resell for more responsive to my requests, at least in our local sales area where i foster a good personal relationship with the channel. my sales guys have no probelm giving me the contact info. for the most powerful person from the telco who has ever tried to endear themselves to our company to apply leverage, or honey when that may help as well.

when your telephone system vendor is the telco reseller, the telco is a bit less likely to think they can baffle the customer with bullchit, and when they see you have that document on file that enables you to manage their telco services they know they can not go around you to report back. single point of contact has its advantages.

 

[chefwong]

Excellent post aarenot ! I have yet to come across a telco provider here in NYC that resells/providee telco service as their own but that is something to look into.

I find it interesting that the non Tier 1 providers I have called whenever I needed to speak to tech about a circuit problem, paetec, XO, etc - there is a consistent knowledgeable tech that picks up on the support line and is at least able to poke around, tests, etc on the phone line with you, which is a ++++ IMO.

On the contrary, when calling up on a circuit problem with MCI, ATT, Sprint, etc, it's just a newbee taking a support ticket and then *me* the customer, waiting for a callback. That callback can take 20 minutes to XX hrs.

I've dealt with Paetec alot recently and think the CS is great....just gotta wait from my reps, but the last time I priced out a circuit with them, the MRC was way up there

 

[aarenot]

i intentionaly did not mention the telco we resell for as not to promote them in the forum. i will say they are responsive to our inquiries for service more so than those we do not resell for. they know better than to try to bs 'our' customer, and they are more willing to expidite, and have no problem giving 'our' customer a credit on their bill equal to our emergency service when it ends up being a telco issue. we simply resell their services, and the technicians seem to know this when they show up and see us on site. they tend to ask what we need rather than just say, here is the way it is. that may have something to do with the fact that they have recieved forwarded em from me via their boss when they perform well for 'our' customer.

they are however not one of the old school, large providors which i have no confidence in their support in any consistent basis.
to 1043 my experience has not mirrored your own with your choice of telco providors. i used to work for an sbc reseller, and they gave us no consideration for being their reseller, they are now a part of att. i think probably the little guy is more responsive than the big guy.

 

[chefwong]

Acutally -ptec - out of the few times I've dealt with them lately, they do have that nice old skool feeling to it when it comes down to CS.

On the data side, I still do prefer the old school large providers mainly from a routing, latency, peering, perspective.

Maybe it's different on the voice side of things ;-)

 

[GHTROUT]

doktor, re few suppliers... I agree with that for the majority of customers. Good advice.

However, if you are the minority - in this example a customer than can justify multiple circuits, there are even more reasons than redundancy to have multiple carriers.

Carriers rank us customers by "potential revenue" in most cases, resulting in pricing based on total potential revenue. My voice network spans at a main site consist of: 2 Global Xing, 1 Sprint, 3 MCI/Verizon, 1 Time Warner Tcom and 5 SBC/ATT. Each have priced us as if they have a chance at gaining a 'first choice' position in my routing.

Assuming I can justify the number of spans, all that is left is cost per minute and the cost of "confusion and delay" in troubleshooting (which you are so correct is a big cost, increased with every carrier added). In my case, we are just able to pass that point and justify it all for 'redundancy'


~

http://www.GHTROUT.com/

 

[donporter]

I would past on XO.
If you could I would just go with the LEC and not a CLEC.

 

[artesian2000]

If you choose to go with a CLEC for voice service make sure you build in some failover capapbilites. I'd pass on XO. Paetec isn't bad at all and they can give you automatic reroute options. For data stick with the tier 1's of the world. The little guys like to claim the networks are just as good but the SLA's and performance usually isn't. ATT and MCI are behemoths, Qwest not bad. Take a look and Global Crossing for data also.