I recently came back from a vacation to Cancun, Mexico. A great place with good food, super beaches and a very tourist friendly town. So, with all of our family mobile phones we checked out the international coverage from Sprint, AT&T and Verizon.  All worked well with good coverage (even the iPhone on Verizon), however before you turn on the phone for that last minute business call just take into consideration all the additional fee charges you will encounter on your next bill. We may have all you can talk and unlimited data plans in the USA, but in foreign countries there are many different charges ranging from roaming, access, text and local provider access fees. Before you know it that 2 minute call from home about the dog or grandma cost you $18. From a company perspective if you have international travellers make sure you have a policy in place that highlights the steps you need to take before stepping on the plane. Such as:

1. Notify carrier of international travel
2. Make sure your corporate contract has international rates
3. Turn off automatic sync for email
4. Utilize WiFi where possible

The European Commission on July 1^st mandated that carriers cannot charge more than (32p per minute + VAT) for inbound calls and (10p per minute +VAT) for outbound calls. These new tariffs will as least keep the charges in check, and they also added a users data consumption cap of 50 euros. (€ 45 pounds). Customers who want to continue data roaming can request the limit be removed. Just be careful, we had a client last year that had an executive travel to Paris and did not have any plans or policies in place and received a $2000 bill for a two day trip!

A few months ago, Advocate Networks received a letter from Senator John D. Rockefeller, Chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, requesting information regarding "cramming" or unauthorized third party charges on landline telephone bills. The committee has been collecting information and evidence over the past year showing that this practice is prevalent in third party billing systems. "Cramming" is essentially the inclusion of bogus charges that show up on monthly bills with vague or misleading descriptions. For example, some local phone companies will bill customers for "long-distance" charges that other companies provide. Interestingly cramming charges were identified in roughly 90% of the audit cases we performed. In the past year alone, nearly $800,000 in cramming charges have been found on our clients' landline telephone bills. Close to $500,000 of that total was identified on a single client's telephone bills. While it is reassuring that the government has noticed this pervasive issue and seems to be working towards a solution, what can you do in the meantime to prevent your company from potentially spending half a million dollars a year in unauthorized charges? Careful review of your company's telephone bills each month is the best way to avoid and/or detect cramming charges. Make sure that you are aware of any increases in charges or additional services provided and note that some crammers try to submit low dollar charges to several thousand users in order to avoid detection. Ensuring that your company does not fall victim to these phony charges can be time-consuming if it is not outsourced to a bill management firm, but well worth the investment either way.

I recently attended a panel discussion in Chicago organized by the local chapter of 7x24 exchange . This organization is the leading knowledge exchange for those who design, build, use and maintain mission-critical enterprise information infrastructures. The event, led by Tom Kutz from Affiliated Engineers, attracted over 125 attendees and was held at the Equinix Data Center in Elk Grove. The discussion focused on how an enterprise company evaluates and decides whether to build/expand a data center or buy services from a co-location...

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As we close out this month's Out Front newsletter we had several requests for our team to discuss how can a company prevent "Hacking". As you may have read or seen on the TV, "Hacking" made headlines with the News Corporation scandal in the UK (that's the United Kingdom not the University of Kentucky). The problem of "Hacking" a mobile phone can affect all areas of your business from corporate espionage to personal identity theft, having a plan, policy and security in place is critical. So ask your telecommunications team or IT department to give you their current state. Finally we continue to follow and advise our clients on the AT&T merger update and the acquisition of Skype by  Microsoft.  So, as  you can see we have many research projects and ongoing challenges faced by our clients. Enjoy the rest of the summer and if you have any comments or suggestions for articles please email me.

Sincerely, 

Paul Shiman

Chief Marketing Officer

Advocate Networks

Phone: 678-987-5953

E-mail: paul.shiman@advocatenetworks.com