Can anyone tell me what's up with this company? Birch Telecom - (a telecommunications business). . . they are calling.wanting me to give my OK for them to check my telephone bills so they can offer me much better rates than we are currently getting. She was saying they can take Bell South and transfer ownership to them so they can offer me much lower rates. (something like that)
As you all know by now from a prior thread, I am not a Techie when it comes to all this telephone stuff - hey!! I am learning though - thanks to all of you. :>)
Is it worth looking into? Do they sub-lease to Bell South or what????
https://www.birch.com/ Reseller there are lots of them around, some good some not. They buy bundles from the local telco for a discounted price and resell them. Best bet is to check with some of their other customers, many have hidden cost that don't show up until after you switch.
also, some ask for reallllly long contract agreements. And I've seen at least one go belly up and the users all lost thier lines when the telco got court permission to turn off thier T's, to make matters worse the clients were paying by lease from a third party who still wanted to be paid for the equipment.
mark
You can save A LOT of money by going with a CLEC over BellSouth!
Many CLECS offer expanded calling areas. In other words, some calls that use to be long distance may now be free. There might cities which are close to your location but normally considered long distance.
Many of them also provide extra features such as call waiting, caller ID at no additional cost(unlike bell south)
I would strongly recommend you to compare the deal. Bell South really rips people off to be honest.
My personal bills are over 50% less then with bell south.
Let me know how it turns out.
fwiw............birch is pulling out of the east texas area. i have tons of birch customers calling now because they are switching back to sbc
There is more than 1 CLEC. BellSouth has horrible service and their prices are outrageously unfair. Many of the BellSouth systems are over 20 years old.
I have found the CLEC to have all the latest technology and much better service. I have literally spend close to 1 hour trying to actually get a live person on the phone with BellSouth.
If a CLEC company can give you better service, customer support and a large price savings. Then why not give them your business over a company like BellSouth that treats they customers like trash.
We have a CLEC going belly up in our area due to some recent legislation. Now we are trying to win back their old customers as returning SBC customers, since we are SBC dealers/agents.
[This message has been edited by 5years&counting (edited January 12, 2005).]
I don't know about anywhere else in the country , but Birch does a good job here in Dallas price wise, medium on customer service. My order ranking for CLEC'S here is CBeyond, Time Warner then Birch. Everyone else is chop liver.
We always try and discourage our customers from switching away from Bellsouth. Let's say you get mad at the Bell guy and kick him out, call a new company to give them your business. Guess who shows up to install the circuits for your "new" lines, yep the same guy you just kicked out. Only bad thing is now, your not "his" customer anymore and you just thought you had bad service and response times before! And wait until the line goes down, you call your new company they in turn call Bellsouth after a week or two of "it's the other guys problem" you may end up on the work order list.....way down the list. At least that's how it seems to work here. I've have seen it take literally months past the "due date" for customers who have switched to get there lines moved 2 blocks down the street. Sometimes saving a little money isn't saving at all.
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Never criticize a man without walking a mile in his shoes...... by then you'll be a mile away, plus you've got his shoes.
Just have them sign a paper stating they will pay you for all lost business for every day your phone lines are down on the switchover.
I contract out to 3 different CLEC's, but use Qwest. For reasons mentioned and also since this is a very small area and I worked with most these guys years ago before the breakup, I get things from them they normally wouldn't do for a CLEC.
Is Birch still in Chapter 11? They were going great guns in the KC area ---- then they pulled in. They love to install Nortel systems, charge great big prices, and give DSL service where SBC says SBC can't. But I'd be nervous about their staying power.
That is some pretty impressive fear mongering you have going on there. I wonder if anyone in this thread has a vested interest in Bell South.
The CLEC company that I use is also providing service to major hospitals, Ticket master, Microsoft and Vonage(data lines)
I use to have access to a web page with industry analysis and many CLECS are rated extremely high and have 99.999% guarantee uptime.
If you are switching normal phone service, you won't even noticed that your lines have been switched over until you receive a bill that is 50% less than Bell South.
I would try to find a good CLEC in your area if I were you.
[This message has been edited by Jonnydanger (edited January 13, 2005).]
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jonnydanger:
[B]That is some pretty impressive fear mongering you have going on there. I wonder if anyone in this thread has a vested interest in Bell South.
The CLEC company that I use is also providing service to major hospitals, Ticket master, Microsoft and Vonage(data lines)
I use to have access to a web page with industry analysis and many CLECS are rated extremely high and have 99.999% guarantee uptime.
If you are switching normal phone service, you won't even noticed that your lines have been switched over until you receive a bill that is 50% less than Bell South.
I would try to find a good CLEC in your area if I were you.
Let me know your e-mail and I'll try to help you out.
That is some pretty impressive fear mongering you have going on there. I wonder if anyone in this thread has a vested interest in Bell South.
The CLEC company that I use is also providing service to major hospitals, Ticket master, Microsoft and Vonage(data lines)
I use to have access to a web page with industry analysis and many CLECS are rated extremely high and have 99.999% guarantee uptime.
If you are switching normal phone service, you won't even noticed that your lines have been switched over until you receive a bill that is 50% less than Bell South.
I would try to find a good CLEC in your area if I were you.
Let me know your e-mail and I'll try to help you out.
Couldn't have said it any better, Johnnyreb! The CLEC's are just paper companies. They take the orders, or repair calls, and pass it on to the telco. The CLEC's haven't spent years building central offices, and placing thousands of miles of cable - they can afford to buy bulk from the telco and resell it at a cheaper rate.
Not "fear mongering" informing, cheaper yes, better no. As Johnyreb stated still the same lines and same tech comes out, only difference is if the trouble is "in" he leaves. By time I get the trouble call, if it's an out of service, the customer is really pissed cause he's been out a week or more. They always give it to the LEC first unless the customer tells them he is only having trouble at one location.
It is my understanding that Birch is not a CLEC but just a reseller. They resell Bellsouth services. You might be better off asking Bellsouth about a "Key customer agreement" You can save about 15% off of your bill. You do have to sign a 24 month contract.
That's what a CLEC is friend. They get LEC DT and cable pairs at discounted rates and resell them. FYI the FCC is rethinking this which may put a bunch of the out of business, or course it could take years. I think as more and more broadband is used for phone service the FCC will say that's enough competition and let the LEC raise there rates to the resellers. Just my opinion.
Let's clarify the terms - from a regulatory standpoint, a company is either an ILEC (Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier) or a CLEC (Competetive Local Exchange Carrier).
FYI: From the Atlanta Journal,
BellSouth and Birch Telecom of the South said they signed a long-term agreement in which BellSouth will provide Birch with wholesale local phone service in nine Southeastern states.
Terms weren't disclosed.
Birch serves about 140,000 small and medium-sized businesses in more than 50 metropolitan markets in 12 states.
Earlier this week, BellSouth signed a similar agreement with Access Integrated Networks of Macon.
I visited Birch telecom several years ago to teach a technical course to their employees and technicians. They were a good group of people. I give my recommendation
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Phone Genius
https://www.phonesbyasap.com
The biggest issue I have with CLECS who are only resellers is the potential for disaster it creates, the LEC is still the one that sends the techs out, problem is you can't contact them directly bercause you aren't their customer, the CLEC issues a trouble ticket and as far as they are concerned they've done their part until the customer calls up screaming that it still isn't fixed, the CLEC hasd no control over expediting programming changes or even trouble tickets. We have a long list of customers that shudder when you mention changing their providers, they have horrible stories of being without service, lines ringing to other locations, we won't work with these resellers because for us it's not worth the trouble. On the other hand we have been having resounding success with Vonage on all fronts.
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One stop Voice and Data Solutions VoIP
I think for the better part of my CLEC experiences have been pure chaos in most instances. Downtime, no LD, Trouble that takes forever for them to dipsatch the LEC, and so on i could go on and on. I have had great experiences with CLEC's that bring in a T1 and channel bank it, the ones i have done which have been quite a few have been seemeless with maybe a couple of little problems, one being Disconnect from the freaking channel bank that still doesn't work which cause VM horror stories!!
just my .2