Changing Your Long-Distance Carrier if You Have Regular PhoneLines

Changing Your Long-Distance Carrier if You Have Regular Phone Lines

When you have established the phone service for your home or office, the most common change is replacing the long-distance carrier. The long-distance per-minute rate you signed up for years ago is probably higher than you can get today, and so moving your service every few years can definitely save money.

For the sake of simplicity, I group all nondedicated phone lines into the category of regular phone lines because the process to change long-distance carriers is the same on all of them. Any phone line that doesn’t arrive into your office on one big cable that your hardware splits out into some multiple of 24 phone lines is, by this definition, a regular phone line. Regular phone lines have lots of different names, according to your local carrier:

• Residential lines: This is more of a billing designation, but is a basic phone line that terminates to a residence.

• POTS lines: I am not lying to you when I say that POTS means plain old telephone service. It is a generic term for a regular phone line.

• 1MB: This is a 1 Measured Business line. This term is virtually synonomous with POTS, except that POTS refers to any regular line and 1MB refers to lines that specifically terminate at a business.

• Centrex/Centranet: These are special business lines with a wealth of features available on them.

• Switched lines: This is a generic term, like POTS, that referrs to any phone line that isn’t running over a dedicated circuit.

No matter what you call them, the industry has a standard way of changing the long-distance carrier on regular phone lines.

Beginning the process

The first step in ordering long-distance service is filling out an application for service with the carrier. The application includes a section that acts as a Letter of Authorization (LOA). The LOA is the legalese that allows your long-distance carrier to send an order to your local carrier to point all of your long-distance calls to its long-distance network. In most parts of the U.S., the moment an authorized person signs his or her name to the application or is recorded on tape as agreeing to the service, the order is set and begins running through the system.

 Remember  But if you’re a residential customer in California or Georgia, you must, by law, complete a third-party verification (TPV) before your order can be processed. TPV is an automated system that verifies new long-distance orders. Customers must call the toll-free number, access the verification system, and give their name, address, the carrier you want to change to, and phone number.

Every carrier that provides residential service in California and Georgia may have its own twist on TPV services, so you may be asked additional questions. However, the general format is the same. As you are reciting your information, the system tapes everything you say and sends the verification to your new carrier so your order can be processed. In these states, this is a process that every carrier must follow, regardless of their size or track record.

Understanding the timeline

When all the paperwork is complete and you are through the legal hurdles, your new long-distance carrier has to submit the order to your local carrier and then wait for a response. Your local carrier is the company that controls all calls on regular phone lines, routing them to your assigned long-distance carrier, so making sure the local carrier is in the loop is essential. You have to wait about three to five business days for the local carrier to process or reject your order. For information on rejection, see “Explaining your rejections,” later in this chapter.

When the order is accepted, your local carrier assigns your new long-distance carrier to your phone lines. From this point forward, your long-distance calls are routed using the long-distance company’s network.

Explaining your rejections

If your order for long distance is rejected by your local carrier, all is not lost. There is an industry standard for this process and some general guidelines to prevent orders from dropping off the face of the earth.

An order can be rejected for many reasons, and the industry has created a series of four-digit codes called Transaction Code Status Indicators or TCSI codes, to help relay the status of your order, including information about whether it is confirmed (which means it was completed), or rejected (and why it was rejected). Every local carrier has its own spin on the TCSI codes, but some of the numbers are standard in the industry. Table 7-1 shows a small section of TCSI codes and gives you a sample of what they look like. The first two digits give you a general idea of the status of the order, and the last two digits give you the specifics.

Table 7-1: TCSI Codes

TCSI Code	Description
20-04	Confirmed
20-05	Confirmed Moving
21-66	PIC Restricted (PIC Freeze)
22-15	Disconnected — Working Telephone Number Only
23-28	All Customer Information Changed

Table 7-1 represents an extremely small sampling of the codes that can appear on a migration request for a new long-distance carrier. As you can see, the codes that start with 20 are completed; codes that start with 21 are simple rejections. Your order could be delayed or rejected for any of several thousand reasons. If your carrier already sees your phone line as disconnected (TCSI code 22-15) the carrier won’t change the long-distance carrier. Similarly, if your company just merged with another company, and your billing address and company name changed (TCSI code 23-28), the order is rejected.

When your long-distance carrier receives the TCSI codes, you may get a call to confirm that the number is active, that there haven’t been any changes placed on the order, or to ask you to remove the PIC freeze from your line. Any rejections that occur delay the migration to your new carrier at least three to five more business days.

Completing the move without rejections and other hassles

The easiest way to change long-distance providers is to call your local carrier and request the new carrier. The process is called self-PICing your line because you’re personally calling in to have your local carrier change your PIC (primary interexchange carrier or long-distance carrier).

The PIC, and sometimes called the CIC, for carrier identification code, is the four-digit number that your local carrier uses to identify your long-distance network. Table 7-2 gives you a glimpse at some PIC codes and the carriers they represent.

Table 7-2: PIC Codes

PIC Code	Carrier
0222	MCI WorldCom
0288	AT&T Communications
0333	Sprint
0432	Qwest Communications
0444	Global Crossing Telecommunications, Inc.

 Remember  Call your long-distance carrier and ask for its PIC code before you self-PIC. Every long-distance carrier has at least one PIC code, and you need to know it, especially if you are changing to a lesser-known carrier. This isn’t because changing your long-distance service to a lesser-known carrier is particularly difficult for your local carrier than changing it to Sprint, AT&T, or MCI. The issue is that the smaller companies evolve over time and are more likely to be bought, sold, merged with other companies, and experience name changes. Keeping information up-to-date isn’t always a local carrier’s first priority.

If you call Verizon to self-PIC to Broadwing with a PIC code of 0948, for example, your local provider may have the company name listed by its former name, IXC Communications. Or if your local carrier was Bell South, Bell South may have Broadwing (also known by its previous incarnation, IXC Communications) listed as Switched Services. All three entities have the same PIC code, but the list used by the local carriers to cross-reference the code with the name may be years out of date, hundreds of companies long, and sorted by company name, not PIC code. Knowing the right code prevents most local carriers from searching for the PIC code on your behalf, and reduces the possibility of errors. You can also give the local carrier options on names so that it can validate the four-digit PIC. In the end, the incarnation of the name they have listed doesn’t matter, as long as the PIC code is correct.

 Tip  Some local carriers ask for a five-digit rather than a four-digit PIC code. If this question is posed to you, don’t worry. Simply add 1 to the PIC code your carrier gave. For example, if you’re switching to AT&T, instead of telling your local carrier the PIC of 0288, simply say that it’s 10288.

Keeping bills within reason when you self-PIC

You need to be aware of a couple of potential problems so that you avoid sky-high phone bills when you self-PIC:

• If you give your local carrier the wrong information, you risk being blocked for long-distance service or being billed at very high rates. If you make a mistake, the erroneous carrier you request will have no record of the order and will charge you as much as it can. And because you made the change yourself (you decided to self-PIC; the company didn’t slam you), you don’t have much leverage to ask for a credit or any leniency. The worst part about this potential problem is that you will probably not see your first invoice from the new carrier for about a month, by which time the damages could be substantial.

• Before you self-PIC to your new long-distance carrier, confirm that the long-distance company’s network is set up to receive calls from you. The exact same problems could crop up if you are self-PICing to your long-distance carrier or if somehow you are sent to the wrong network. The only benefit you have if you are billed at the maximum rates from your carrier is that the long-distance carrier has a vested interest in keeping you happy. If you chat with a representative of the new company, you may be offered a courtesy credit or a rerate.

Confirming your long-distance carrier

After you sign the contract with your new carrier, your contact at the new long-distance carrier will certainly attempt to reassure you that in about seven business days you will be enjoying the new lower rate. That is great, but the timeline may not be met for one of a variety of reasons. Because you don’t work for a carrier, you will not get to see the TCSI codes to check on whether the order was rejected or completed. The good news is that you can test your phone lines to confirm your long-distance carrier any time of the day or night.

A 700 test is an industry term that refers to dialing 1-700-555-4141 on your touch-tone phone to determine long-distance carrier. The 700 test number is a free call that directs you to a recording set up by your long-distance carrier that simply says something like, “Thank you for using AT&T.” The test is 99 percent accurate.

 Remember  The 700 test only validates the long-distance carrier for the individual phone line being dialed on. If you have 70 phone lines you want to check, you have to manually seize each phone line and dial the 700 test number. There isn’t a way to check a group of phone lines with this test. If you had an open order to add voicemail to your main phone line, or to change the contact name on the account, or any activity on any of your phone lines, the open order would have blocked your line from being changed. This scenario is much more common than you might expect, especially for large customers, to find a handful of lines that didn’t migrate to your new carrier for one reason or another.

The 700 test only validates the PIC your local carrier has listed for your interLATA long-distance traffic. Some local carriers offer a 700 test for your intraLATA PIC of 1-700-(your area code)-4141, but generally, you can only confirm the long-distance carrier for your interLATA calling. If you aren’t really sure what intraLATA calls are versus interLATA calls, check out Chapter 3 for the specifics.

 Remember  Sometimes 700 tests do fail, but for the majority of people they work perfectly. Some competing local exchange carriers (CLECs) like PAETEC or Mpower may not provide the feature, but may instead send you to an automated voice that recites the phone number you are dialing from. It is uncommon, but sometimes carriers that provide 700 tests may have conflicting information in their systems; the 700 test may not be routed anywhere. When in doubt, call your local carrier. Your rep should be able to validate everything you want to know.

Cancelling service with your old carrier

You have confirmed your lines are set up with your new carrier, and the 700 test says that you are on the new carrier, so you are done, right? Well, no. Now you have to call your old long-distance carrier and cancel your existing service. One section of the long-distance company may receive a report from your local carrier that explains that you have changed carriers, but that doesn’t mean that your old carrier has any incentive to stop charging you, unless you call in and cancel the service.

 Remember  It is unlikely that your long-distance will change from your old carrier to your new carrier at the exact moment that your billing cycle ends. You will receive an invoice from both carriers for the same month you transition to the new carrier. It is important to check this invoice to ensure all of your lines in all of your areas of coverage (intraLATA and/or interLATA) have moved to the new carrier.

You may receive invoices from your old and new carriers for the same month at about the same time. Don’t worry; you are not being double-billed. Check the detail sections of each bill to see whether any of the calls overlap. There should be a date when calls stop on your old carrier and start on your new carrier. If you see no obvious sign that the calls stop with the old carrier and begin with the new one at around the same time, call your new carrier for help.