On January 31, 2022 SMS/800, Inc. filed new rates with the FCC in the Service Management System (SMS/800) Functions tariff. Barring any industry comments the rates will be effective February 15, 2011. The good news is the rates went down. The key rate to our customers is the per number per month rates which went from $.1054 to $.0966. OK it’s not huge, but in this day and age any rate reduction is appreciated. As always ATL will pass that saving on to you on your February 15 bill. If you have any questions feel free to call.

LAKE ELSINORE, CA – January 3, 2011 – Over 800 votes were cast by qualified TA agent members in the fifth annual Telecom Association (“TA”) “Members Choice” Awards for 2010. 

TA’s voting members are heavily experienced technology industry consultants and channel sales partners that have compared all the best and affordable vendors against one another. Through hard earned experience, TA members know which telecom industry vendors to avoid and which ones to recommend. Having TA’s qualified voting members select TA’s vendors as their choice means they are both trusted and proven in their winning category. 

To be designated by TA as a qualified TA “Voting Member”, a TA member must show themselves to be both experienced and qualified. To measure their voting qualification, TA examines the member’s business website, their LinkedIn page and even interviews them on the phone if necessary. “If I wouldn’t feel comfortable referring my best customer to them I don’t want them voting in TA’s awards,” concluded Baldwin, also an active telecom agent himself. 

ATL RESPORG SERVICES WAS NAMED THE MEMBERS CHOICE IN THE RESPORG CATEGORY. 

Some of the ATL praises posted on the TA site include: 

Excellent customer service and issue follow up; none better. Best RespOrg! 

Posted by: Baron Thrower, CEO, The Thrower Group, and LLC. | 09/15/2010 at 10:47 AM 

ATL’s customer service is unmatched among our various telecom vendors. ATL is consistently responsive, courteous, and willing to help educate their customers regarding both how to advantageously set up toll-free numbers and industry trends around toll-free in general. I always feel like ATL has time for me and there is absolutely no arguing with their turnaround on requests. 

Posted by: Enhanced Service Provider, Commercial Customer (verified by TA) | 09/15/2010 at 10:51 AM

Yesterday more than 20 companies met to work on a proposal to expand or replace the board of SMT.  SMT is the organization that was established when toll free number portability was being implemented and by FCC order had one representative for each of the seven Bell Operating Companies (BOC).  Since the mergers the board has  only three members.  This workgroup is open to any company that is a RespOrg and will culminate with a request to the FCC to order the change.  Below is a link to the proposal.

Proposal

A discussion of this has been opened on LinkedIn in the RespOrg group.

SMS routes by Carrier Identification Codes (CIC).  If you are an IP Provider,  how is that working for you?  As the industry moves towards IP and the old Bell companies announce they are getting out of the old landline business, what happens with the routing of toll free?

I am in discussions with several entities about this.  Should a new system be designed and implemented to bypass the current SMS?  If so does that take involvement from regulatory entities? Should the SMS be upgraded to include IP addresses?   Do the new IP providers even want to work with SMS as it is still controlled by a board of the former Bell Operating Companies.

What are your thoughts.

I fell apart on my travel blog as the days got longer and the mornings earlier.  After I left New York and New Jersey I went to DC, West Virginia and Philadelphia.  All in all I have to say DC is still my favorite city.  I lived there for a couple of years many years ago and, except for the weather, it is my favorite city.  I was walking from a meeting with Alliance for Telecom Industry  Solutions (ATIS) to Comptel (a great industry association) and I was suddenly walking right by the White House.  I don’t know how others feel, but I love being close to the decisions that influence the world.

On a side note, if anyone wants to offer me a job where I can be in DC only in the good weather (no humidity please) and of course a hefty housing allowance because I would want to live right downtown, I’m your person.  I realize these are very tough terms, so if no one wants to meet them I will understand.   I will just suffer in a beautiful mountain resort in Oregon.

About six months ago Rick convinced me to get a Garmin.  I am what you might call a late adopter.  In the 70’s I didn’t want a pager, in the 80’s I didn’t want voice mail, in the 90’s I didn’t want e-mail and I never wanted a cell phone.

Rick found me a Garmin at a good price but since then have never really found an instance where it was needed.  Yesterday I was in New Jersey and fell in love with it.  Growing up in California I am used to freeways that if you have a freeway exit on one side, you can immediately get back on the other side. Not true in New Jersey.  If you miss a turn off there you are dumped onto surface streets from which you will never recover.

So, back to my GPS – when you miss a turn it doesn’t say, “you’re an idiot, now what are you going to do?”  It calmly and without raising its voice says, “Recalculating, recalculating.”  Then it continues to calmly lead you back to where you should be.

All life needs to work harder to act like a GPS.

Aelea has left us to visit those of you who live all the way over on the east coast.  Snack, Think, Work is her daily rendition on how her travels across the east coast are going.

Day 1

I got to Boston last night.  I pride myself in using public transportation, not only because it is cheaper which goes to the bottom line, but also because I used to be a city girl and want to make sure I still have it in me.  So I buy a train ticket from the airport, but I can’t find the train.  I ask someone and they point me to a bus, which I thought would go to the station.  It actually did; all the way to station I was going to take the train to.  The bus charged me $2.00 and now I had the $4.25 ticket unused.  Then today when I thought I would take the subway to the train station, I couldn’t find the ticket.

Since I had been cooped on airplanes all day I decided to walk to the hotel.  I was dragging my bag, computer case and the bag I take on planes with books, telecom magazines I am so behind in reading there internet is still being invented, CD player, headsets – in other words heavy things to keep me occupied because I get bored easily. 

Not only did it turn out the hotel wasn’t all that close; it was night and 96% humidity.  Forty minutes later I final get to the hotel and probably looked and smelled like something off the street because I was off the street.  I have to say though the five or so people I asked for direction were very helpful.

ATL introduced this ad at ITEXPO West in Los Angeles and let me tell you, it was really hard for me.  For those of you who know me, this is really not me.  It is edgy and pushes violent, two things that I am not.  I would say that I haven’t been edgy for about thirty years and have stood against violence for forty. 

When I told the advertising people this just wasn’t me their response was, “so much of your target audience is middle age women?”  No, there are almost no middle-age women owned telecommunications companies.  That’s why telecom trade shows still have girls in hot pants and cheerleader outfits.  I tested the idea on my good friend Nate Bledsoe from X5 Solutions and he said that he was impressed I called the thing you pull a cotter pin because usually only people who know about grenades (as he apparently does) know that is the name.  I have to admit it must have been the advertising people who knew that because I would have called it “that thing you pull.”

We actually tried to use dead grenades as props at out booth but the exhibit security felt it was not the best of ideas.  They did, however, let us take our ammunition box which we used to collect business cards.  Between the ammo box and the grenade ad we had the attention of many people and received several reactions.  Being around all these grenades must have gotten to us because on the way home we contemplated throwing one of the grenades into the back of a pick-up truck that cut us off on a Los Angeles freeway.  (We reconsidered because the jail time might interfere with our getting back to work.)

So what do you think?  If this ad was in your show bag, which 6000 of ours were, would it get your attention?  What would your perception be of ATL?  Should we use it at Comptel – Las Vegas March 2011?

First, for better or worse, the last minute FCC decision to limit RespOrg to 100 numbers per day made this release entirely different than the past ones.  Gone was the one-company-gets- all outcome of 800-555, or the all-numbers ending-in-three-zeros- are-gone-in-thirty seconds scenario of 877, or the 866 rendition, half-the-RespOrgs-locked out.

The result is that more than a week into the release there are still “good” numbers left.  There are still numbers with three zeros left, but the specific vanity numbers that spell words were gone in the first few minutes and mostly to the usual suspect.  ATL has a fortune 100 company that wanted the 855 number followed by the numbers spelling  their company name.  It was our first search in the opening minutes and it was already snapped up by a porn provider who undoubtedly wanted it because it will be frequently misdialed.  Some things never change.

So was it a good thing?  My opinion was that it was better than the past free for alls, but not perfect.  The main issue I saw was that it didn’t recognize that if you are a large RespOrg doing regular work (defined as not all vanity numbers)  you probably needed more numbers.  ATL has over a million numbers under our RespOrg IDs and more than 250 customers.  I’m sure AT&T and Verizon and other large carriers had more than 100 end users wanting numbers.  That made the FCC order difficult for us, but in the end, it made us far more competitive with the big engine guys who have been preparing for this for months, or years maybe.  So, my final answer – yes it was a good thing.

If anyone else wants  to weigh in on this I would be interested in hearing your opinion, but remember, I am referred to in some circles as “The RespOrg Goddess.”