by J David Childs

Created on: April 23, 2009   Last Updated: April 25, 2009

Executive Summary

Cost containment is the mantra for any cost center executive. In the telecommunications environment of an enterprise and for purposes of managing costs, one does not have to be technical in mind to grasp the fundamentals in differentiating between regulated and unregulated telecom services, but understanding the differences helps ensure that your service assurance (maintenance) costs are under control.

In practice, once a clear distinction between regulated and unregulated telecom services, the distinction has become cloudy. The cause of this cloud is mainly attributed to employee attrition and churn in the industry, as well as the explosion of new and varying types of services fueled by technology. The cloud is lifted easy enough though, with a discussion on the topic of the telecommunication rules pertaining to the point where regulated and unregulated telecom services begin and end at the end-user premises.

Deep in the organizational bilges (or several departments removed from the customer-facing account team) of your service provider is someone (probably a staff engineer) that understands MPOE rules. Experience reveals that neither your telecom executive account manager nor those that frequently support your account are knowledgeable in the subject. Furthermore, operational experts that participate in your service meetings may speak so matter-of-factly and so convincing on the subject of billable dispatches, but can be dead wrong because they do not know the regulations regarding MPOE. It is probable that not even your service provider's product managers for your access and local services tariffs fully understand the MPOE regulations, as well.

Please do not blame them, though. To understand MPOE has not generally been a requirement to be a good operations expert or product manager in the telecom industry. As you will see though, it helps!

If your telecom or payables departments cannot scrutinize an invoice from your service provider and assess whether the regulated or unregulated dispatch charges are legitimate, you are likely paying too much for billable dispatches to your premises MPOEs. Your service providers invoices may be billing hundreds of dollars per dispatch when the charges should be less than one hundred dollars or even at no charge. These charges grow exponentially.

For example, your team is amidst a project that may be tagging and identifying circuits in preparation for a groom, or reconciling inventory. The project may involve

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