asterisk users - Apr 2004 - Level3 and resellers (was: Spring VON Wrap Up)

At 1:34 PM -0700 on 4/5/04, Mike Machado wrote:
>  > Was there any aggressive pricing given for nationwide voip LD?
>
>Level3 had several products, one they called Enhanced which was supposed
>to also include E911 service. They quoted me about $.01 per minute
>inbound or outbound nation wide. They said they support the top 300
>cities in the US and, of course, have plans to serve every rate center
>in the US.
>
>I also went and talked with ITXC, but the rather bad sales person said
>they were only really interested in international calling and not
>domestic LD.
If you find someone at Level3 who will give you the time of day if 
you're less than 10 million minutes, let me know.  Their sales reps 
have more or less blown me off completely unless I could bring them 
that volume day 1, and they've been very upfront with their stonewall 
tactics.  Additionally, ask them how they get minutes to you - good 
luck getting SIP handoffs, and also good luck unless you're on a 
Level3 IP bandwidth connection or cross-connect in their co-lo.  Lots 
and lots of hidden costs in there which more than make up for the 
"low" prices on per minute fees unless you're pouring huge numbers
of
minutes into them.

Lack of transparency in the sales process is going to kill these big 
companies that think they need a sales rep to negotiate for the best 
price.  I want a web page and a signup process and an invoice that 
makes sense, and no murky hand-waving and hidden costs that require a 
"team" of sales people to sort through.  <grumble>  Can you tell
I've
been working all day with telco sales yahoos who don't know what 
"SIP" is without asking their engineering team?

JT