“‘We can confirm reports of an FCC investigation into mystery fees that appeared on Verizon Wireless bills costing over 15 million Americans tens of millions of dollars,’ Michele Ellison, FCC enforcement bureau chief, said in a statement.”

The charges amount to from $2.00 – $6.00 and according to CNBC :

“The affected customers did not have data usage plans, which allow access to the Internet, and were charged because of exchanges initiated by software built into their phones, Verizon said.”

Errors can occur inadvertently or overtly, it is ultimately the end-user’s responsibility to monitor and demand that your carrier charge you only for what you’ve signed up for and pay for what you can expect to pay.

Most commonly I hear comments from clients about small charges like that not being significant to their bottom line.  Let me put it in a different way for you.

If you manage a dozen phones and were consistently overcharged just $4.00 per month, over a 3-year period that is $1,728 of waste.  Manage 200 phones?  That same time period is $28,800 wasted, when you look at 1,500 phones, we’re talking $216,000 WASTED.  We’ve seen waste in excess of 20% – 80% PER MONTH on telecom bills most people think were only slightly out of line.

Don’t let your company get taken advantage of, a telecom audit can reveal more than you could ever expect to find.

According to the article, CEO Vladimir Katalov:

All data transmitted between a BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry smartphones is encrypted with a highly secure AES or Triple DES algorithm. Unique private encryption keys are generated in a secure, two-way authenticated environment and are assigned to each BlackBerry smartphone user. Even more, to secure information stored on BlackBerry smartphones, password authentication can be made mandatory through the policies of a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (default, password authentication is limited to ten attempts, after which the smartphone’s wiped clean with all its contents erased). Local encryption of all data, including messages, address book and calendar entries, memos and tasks, is also provided, and can be enforced via the IT policy as well. With the supplied Password Keeper, Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption allows password entries to be stored securely on the smartphone, enabling users to keep their online banking passwords, PIN codes, and financial information handy — and secure. If that’s not enough, system administrators can create and send wireless commands to remotely change BlackBerry device passwords, lock or delete information from lost or stolen BlackBerries.

Sounds pretty secure, does it? As always, there is the weakest link. With BlackBerry, the weakest link is its offline backup mechanism.”

The article goes on to say that while this is disturbing, it effects backups alone, and well, frankly they’re “just backups”.  But Katalov also goes on to say that backups are are evil because they create a new instance of information that might be private or sensitive. Then he explains the hole in the BlackBerry backup scheme:

Backup encryption uses AES with a 256-bit key. So far, so good. An AES key is derived from the user-supplied password, and this is where the problem arises.

In short, standard key-derivation function, PBKDF2, is used in a very strange way, to say the least. Where Apple has used 2,000 iterations in iOS 3.x, and 10,000 iterations in iOS 4.x, BlackBerry uses only one. Another significant shortcoming is that it’s BlackBerry Desktop Software that encrypts data, not the BlackBerry device itself. This means that the data is passed from the device to the computer in a plain, unencrypted form. Apple devices act differently; the data is encrypted on the device and never leaves it in an unencrypted form. The Apple desktop software (iTunes) acts only as a storage and never encrypts/decrypts backup data. This is quite surprising since the BlackBerry platform is known for its unprecedented security, and we’ve been expecting BlackBerry backup protection to be at least as secure as Apple’s, which turned not to be the case.

What does that mean for us? We can run password recovery attacks on BlackBerry backups really fast — even without GPU acceleration, we can go over millions of passwords per second.

So, what does all this mean to you?  Simply put, there is a great deal of potential for any company interested in finding the data you back up to be able to get it.  This exploit means that now that it has been proven there is a method to crack this information, a rogue employee, competitor or even just some random hacker looking for a thrill can potentially get your data.

What would that data loss mean to your company?

Think this might be too much of a stretch for you to worry about?  Espionage and data loss occurs only with Fortune 500, government entities or James Bond – right?  I can show you how for about $500 or less, I can hire a motivated programmer to target your server and steal your data.  Really.

This exploit will undoubtedly be fixed, but until its patched, there are plenty of opportunities for your data to be compromised.  Talk to your experts and see what you can do to prevent this from happening today.

Hence the $8,000 cell phone bill last month grows to $8,900 – eh, it’s probably a okay.  Then inevitably the bill creep continues until after a few months, the bill inexplicably have reached $9,600.  Why?

As industry watchdogs, we see carriers introduce pricing changes that occur from time-to-time.  Some end users find the moves helpful, others find it confusing.

Take for instance today, the Wall Street Journal reports that Verizon is going to be introducing new data plans over the coming months moving away from the “unlimited” data plan of $29.99 per month.  This moves seems to mimic AT&T recent change in their data plans.  What exactly those new plans will look like will undoubtedly be based on usage level and seems to be an answer to stem the money-losing proposition of “giving away” bandwidth for free.

This gives the end-user one more reason to watch over their bills more carefully and yet another way to add to the confusion of how to monitor and mitigate telecom bill creep

As consumers we have little recourse other than to be overly cautious in watching those bills.  Make sure you take time to take notice of rate changes and when signing on the dotted line how that might effect you in the future, one things for certain – your bills aren’t going to be any easier to read, this I can promise.

What is actually real and what is a nonsense charge that the phone company tacks on there to drive up your bills? You review and try and understand but most of the time, you throw your hands in the air and just pay the bill – right?

Every telecom provider works just a bit differently than the every other carrier, but believe it or not, every carrier is required to help consumers.

So, what is required of your telecommunications service provider? Let’s talk about long distance services….

ALL long distance carriers are mandated by the FCC to provide the consumer with information regarding your long distance telephone service. They must provide you with information regarding the rates, terms, and conditions of your service. If your carriers operates a web site, the FCC does require those carriers to provide that information on their website. Essentially, your long distance providers must show the consumers, what and how they charge for their services, rather than just telling the government what they’re doing. These companies “convey” this info to us through their web sites, our bills, and emails. Long distance companies often include information about changes in terms and rates, you’ve probably seen and thrown away those inserts with your bill – right?

Long distance providers are also required by the FCC to:

* Be clearly organized
* Identify the service provider associated with each charge;
* Highlight new service providers and indicate the date the provider change was made;
* Contain full and non-misleading descriptions of charges;
* Identify those charges for which failure to pay will not result in disconnection of the customer’s basic local service; and
* Provide a toll-free number for customers to call in order to lodge a complaint or obtain information. If the customer does not receive a paper telephone bill but instead accesses that bill only by e-mail or over the Internet, the telephone company may provide the customer with an e-mail address or Web site for inquiring about charges.
* Use standardized labels on bills when referring to certain line item charges relating to federal regulatory action

For example, let me give you the example of Minnesota. From the Minnesota Commerce website here are some of the required and non-standard charges you might see on a bill if you happen to live or have services in the land of 10,000 lakes:

Government Mandated Telephone Fees: The following fees are charged by all telephone companies and are not negotiable.

* Telephone Assistance Plan (TAP): $0.07 per line, per month (up from $.02 on August 1. 2008)
This fee is charged on each telephone line you have (not including cellular phones). It is used to help provide telephone service to Minnesota’s low-income residents.
* Telecommunications Access Minnesota (TAM): $0.06 per line, per month (increased from $0.03 on July 1, 2007)
This fee is charged on each line you have, including cell phones. It is used to fund programs that provide telephone service to people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or speech impaired.
* 9-1-1: $0.75 per line, per month (increased from $0.65 on July 1, 2009)
This fee appears on all telephone bills to operate Minnesota’s 9-1-1 emergency response system.
* State or local sales tax
These fees are assessed by state and/or local governments.

NON-Government Mandated Fees
The following fees may appear on your local phone bill and at first glance appear to be government mandated taxes, but in fact are not. These fees are not deposited into the local, state or federal government treasury, but are retained by the carrier. Some companies do not charge all these fees.

* Subscriber Line Charge (SLC)
Also called a “Federal Access Charge,” or “Interstate Access Charge,” the stated purpose of this fee is to help cover the local phone company’s costs of operating the local telephone network. This charge may be up to several dollars per month.
* Local Number Portability (LNP)
LNP allows you to keep your telephone number if you switch local telephone companies. An LNP charge on your bill pays for the cost of providing this service. LNP charges are temporary. According to FCC Rules, each company can collect the charge for five years after implementing the service.
* In-state Access Recovery Fee Several long distance carriers in Minnesota have recently added this charge to their phone bills. The stated purpose of this fee is to recover the companies’ expense of providing long distance service in Minnesota. You can avoid paying this extra charge by selecting one of the many long distance carriers that does not charge this fee.
* Universal Service Fund (USF) Carriers must pay a percentage of their revenues into a national fund that helps provide telephone service to poor and rural customers and is helping to link the nation’s schools, libraries, and rural hospitals to telecommunications networks, including the internet. Many carriers add a line item to consumer bills to recover this payment, but it is not government mandated and should not be in the “taxes” section of your bill. You may also see this charge on a cellular or pager bill.

What fees in addition to the above are “waivable”?  What can you ask refunds for?  In most cases we see, companies choose to ignore fighting any “extra fees” because they may feel they’re non-negotiable or required.  In many cases did you know that you can be incorrectly charged a fee because somebody can mistype a request on your bill or worse, if you were to call in they could actually reclassify your services and tack on a whole string of extra charges?  Yes – you bet it happens.

Let us know if you’ve seen anything funny on your bills – we’ll take a look at them – no charge and let you see for yourself what you could be overpaying for.

Take for example my latest project,  the weather here is starting to really get nice, after all it is Spring.  So it’s time to hit the ole’ “honey-do” list and think about the things I need to take care of around the house.  One of the items on that list is a pretty time-consuming , manually intensive and somewhat complex deck improvement job.

It will take me several days, a number of trips to the local hardware store, certainly it will cost me money BUT I can absolutely do it.

In the midst of me planning on tackling this beast, I was gently reminded (okay, thoroughly encourage by my wife) that our local handyman might be able to do the job for me.

Initially, I “pa-shawed” the notion altogether.  “I can handle this job, probably just as good as he can, and definitely cheaper” I justified in my head.

Then I remembered my last attempt at a project this size and scale.  A cold shudder ran through my body.  In the end my garage organization project  was over budget, took me several weeks longer than I estimated and in the end, I got something that looked akin to a sculpture that would have felt right at home in a Dr. Seuss book.  As a point of pride for those of you reading this, the project did work and does what I need it to do, but isn’t going to win any design awards, in the end I could have spent my time more wisely and had fewer cuts and bruises too.

So here’s my analogy of the day for you: what if you were approached today by a highly-capable professional.  On the table is the proposal that not only HE do handle something you currently give little time or effort to, BUT was part of your monthly world.  In this proposal your professional contractor would :

1.  Pay for and supply all the materials needed to complete your project.

2.  He would pay his contractors for doing the work, not you.

3.  Require NO effort on your part.

4.  The end result is professional, accurate, organized and clean.

5.  Here’s the biggie, your cost for letting this professional handle your project?  ZERO dollars, in fact HE would pay you for allowing him to do the job.  Yes, really.

Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it?  Who could say no to that proposal?

That’s exactly what most people would think as well – but that is what we do all day long and can do for your company.  If you have large phone bills, you’re going to be paying that bill regardless if you have it taken care of by us or not.  In fact, if unmonitored, it will more than likely grow.

Your choices are to either care of the job yourself, which you’ll probably not enjoy or face it – unless you were hired as an auditor SPECIFICALLY it is NOT really your job but it is your responsibility.  If you’re doing it yourself do you honestly believe that you’re really doing the best job?  If you hired a professional telecom cost reduction company like GrayBear, we GUARANTEE to reduce your costs – is there really a reason NOT to do hire us?

GrayBear Resources can do just that for you.  If you don’t want to do the job in the first place, why not let someone who can do it for you?

More often than we care to hear, we get feedback that what we offer makes absolute sense for them to do, then we hear the fatal word “BUT“.  “We know we need to do this but, I don’t have the time to put toward making this happen right now”, “I know we’re paying too much, but I need to think about it”, “I want to do this but we don’t have time for all the long and drawn out meetings” (which there are none) – BUT BUT BUT.

Ultimately, companies we’ve talked to about our services a majority of the time do eventually decide to move forward, and inevitably we hear – “Why didn’t we do this sooner?”

Let’s take a company that spend on average $20,000 monthly on telecommunications services each month.  It can encompass local, long distance, internet, data, PBX and wireless services combined.  If for instance your savings was able to provide you with an average 20% savings, you’re currently missing on $4,000 PER MONTH of savings unnecessarily.

If you take a look at the chart below you can see, depending on your spend and savings your operating costs could be reduced easily and with NO EFFORT on your part by engaging with a telecom cost recovery company.

More than likely, your company is wasting money unnecessarily, don’t let telecom be one of those expenses.  Our goal is to NOT to create disruption, nor will it involve any great deal of time investment.  If you can see by spending less than 2 hours TOTAL with us, your savings could be tremendous.   Contact GrayBear Resources Group and let us show you what we can do.

This particular company that I was hoping to make my way in was also known as not being very “vendor friendly”.  They were a great account if you managed to get, but that was the entire battle – just getting in.  For about a year and half I managed to pester a particular individual about getting in until one day, the contact I had was GONE!  No longer employed at the company.  Scrambling, I somehow managed to find the name of his replacement and after some persistence, I finally managed to secure a meeting with the new manager in charge of telecommunications for the firm.

I was excited the day I met with him.  He was a very cordial and pleasant person, I learned that he had just moved from the West coast and it turned out we has some similar interests.  After some time discussing what we might be able to do for them, he decided it might be a good idea to see what we might be able to come up with as far as providing them some new services and perhaps even reducing costs.

We were given the opportunity to work on a portion of their existing telecom business and if our solution had merit, we would be able to implement it.  I was elated.

When it came time to review their existing services, what I managed to see absolutely left me speechless.  What our team discovered was a mishmash of convoluted and redundant services that was scattered with non-functioning services that, from a cursory view may have made sense but as we started peeling back layers of the “onion” we discovered what was pretty obvious to us was a sales rep who was looking to pad his own wallet.

I kept hearing conversations I had with the previous manager telling me how his sales team at the telecommunications company was “taking care of them”, in reality it was a mess.  In the end, we provided a proposal that lopped nearly 70% from the monthly costs of their prior account and reduced the number of bills significantly.  The lesson here is to make sure you’re aware of what you’re getting is what you need or at a competitive rate.  You have to stay diligent and on top of your vendor, while it doesn’t happen frequently your sales team may not be looking out for your best interests.

This morning, the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) has announced their intentions of creating a unified open platform that would allow develops of applications to create an application program one time and that app would be able to be deployed to work on any carrier, device and operating system – universally.

The number of companies backing the WAC are 24 and include some of the biggest names in the wireless business today.   Of the largest names participating include AT&T, China Mobile, Orange, Verizon, Sprint and device manufacturers LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.  Such an idea, if successful would be an incredible dream for mobile developers as it would allow them to create an application one time rather than have to redesign the same application for different platforms and networks.

While some view it as a huge announcement that could potentially change the face of the applications, there are a few who view it as a potential disaster.

We’ll leave the pundits to argue whether such an organization’s grand plans will actually work or fail, what is obvious to us is absolutely certain, mobile devices are NO LONGER simply communication services that can be regulated from a spreadsheet.  There is potential for your organization to at the very least incur added charges to your monthly bill to, at the worst case  incur a data breach or malware attack from a rogue app.

The role of the mobile device is quickly changing, it is your responsibility to find the right way to manage those devices such as a software application that knows everything from keeping a mobile device policy, average departmental spend and accounting for inventory control.  An automated program can alleviate those type of headaches.  Talk to your telecom management firm to learn more about your options and how you can get ahead of the ever-changing mobile landscape.

Why?

If you pull out your contract, you’ll find easy things such as start date, commitment levels etc.  But tucked away in an obscure place you might see a tiny clause that identifies your ability to seek any refunds for services is limited to a few months of billing history.  Most people are unaware of that.

Case in point, Company A was overcharged for inactive services that were canceled a while ago but when a review was done, the company was able to only get 3 months worth of charges refunded back to them even though the services had been disconnected for 14 months.  While a professional audit firm would have easily been able to get those additional refunds, most customers simply shrug their shoulders and leave that as a lesson to be learned and not worth the effort of trying to get more of a refund.  We disagree, but I think it’s important to know that the carrier will try and site your contractual obligation and try to stress that point.

The best advice for you today is don’t delay, get the money that is owed to you back ASAP!

So what do you do to prevent information overload and even confused sales people from giving you the wrong information you need?

Here are a couple of tips to help remedy this problem:

1.  Fully understand the scope of your services and what your REQUIRE. Too many times I see that price as the complete bottom line when selecting a carrier or phone system for instance, I’ll tell you now, there is ABSOLUTELY a difference in the quality of various providers of seemingly similar services.  Not simply from a technological standpoint, but competency, feature sets and things like customer service and reputation still play a big part in your selection.  We sat down with a client who bemoaned the fact that a phone system supposedly had a certain feature set and could be upgraded for a modest fee or simply “turned on” for them at no cost.  In reality, they had to spend over $20,000 for this feature and since he had purchased the phone system last year he felt forced into buying this upgrade.

2.  Your sales rep’s word should never be gospel. I have seen in more than one occasion where the sales team was just dead wrong about a question regarding a product or service.  To move forward with your decision criteria based on false information can ruin your whole network configuration or have you paying for fees that you weren’t expecting.  In one case, I actually was witness to PURPOSEFULLY false information presented to a prospective client because the sales rep was leaving in two weeks, but wanted to get the commission before she left.  Luckily, the client didn’t pick that vendor.  Yes – this really happens.

3.  Check the website and pull tariff information if possible. In the cases where very specific information is needed don’t be afraid to do a little “heavy lifting”.  I’ve seen a few times where simply checking some information on the website would have revealed that fees that were being charged in actuality were bogus, network coverage was handled by partner companies and not the vendor and where the customer service number when called yielded an hour long wait on the phone, not the claimed “immediate response”.  Today, we have a great deal of information at our fingertips, be sure to use it.

4.  Trust.  It can be deceiving. I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it again, it is imperative that you have a good relationship with your vendors, but be careful that it’s not taken lightly.  I enjoy a very comfortable relationship with some carrier representatives because that can be important for us to do a good job for our clients.  But I never take it for granted, if I’m really unsure I’ll check with multiple contacts to verify critical information is accurate and that what we hear is relayed back to our clients confidently.  Every now and then, and I believe to be a factor of laziness rather than malice, information is incorrect and I’m glad we checked and double checked.  Make sure you do the same.

All companies that have significant telecom bills need to realize that you are given the opportunity to get the best services and prices in the industry, at the same time be sure you recognize that some may try and take advantage of that and see you as their meal ticket and a fat payday.   Be sure you or have your telecom audit firm make sure it’s not you that gets the short end of the stick.