Paging bills

Paging bills are the simplest telecom bills to understand. The bill shows each pager number with an itemized list of additional charges. These four charges are usually listed for each pager: equipment rental, service, maintenance, and usage.

Some paging carriers do not itemize their charges. They just give one line item for each pager, in which case the charge is normally for equipment rental and service. Some Mom-and-Pop carriers simply show the total charge on one line, such as “pager service for 26 units … $260.” The customer should always request an itemized bill in order to verify all of the charges.

The sample bill in Figure 1 shows that the customer is paying $5 per month for paging service and another $5 per month for equipment rental. This customer could save $10 per month by purchasing the pagers instead of renting them. One of the pagers has an 800 number that is being billed indirectly by the paging company. The bill also notes “001 Pager Contract,” indicating a volume or term contract has been signed. The bill gives no detail, but the carrier’s customer service representatives should be able to explain the terms of the contract quickly.


Figure 1: Typical pager bill.

Equipment rental

Some customers purchase pagers (usually from their carrier), but most customers rent them from their carrier. Businesses watching their cash flow may want to avoid the up-front cost of purchasing new pagers, but paging companies steer most of their businesses toward renting. Equipment rental for a local digital pager costs between $3 and $10 per month.

Rent or buy
One easy way to reduce monthly paging costs is to purchase pagers instead of renting them. The only real advantage of renting pagers is that carriers will repair damaged pagers at little or no cost to the user. If repairs are needed to customer-owned pagers, the customer has to foot the bill. But pagers are fairly low-tech and do not require much maintenance.

For example, a West Coast architectural firm rented 15 digital pagers from its carrier. Each month, the company paid $5 for rental and $6 for service. After performing a miniaudit of its telecom expenses, the company was surprised to learn it had spent more than $1,800 in rental fees over a 2-year period. When it first began using pagers, the company could have purchased all 15 pagers for no more than $750. It presented its findings to its carrier, which ended up giving the firm the pagers for free. Other paging companies may not have been as generous, but they would at least be willing to sell the pagers at a greatly discounted price.

Service

Paging providers bill for service in advance. This is the basic charge for paging; it covers the cost for the tower to transmit messages to the pager. The monthly service for a digital pager with local coverage is usually only $3 to $5.

PRP—Insurance for your pager
Pager maintenance programs, also known as pager replacement programs (PRP), and pager protection, function like an insurance policy. If the pager is lost, damaged, or stolen, the paging company will replace the unit for free. PRP for a digital pager usually costs $1 to $3 per month.

Save money on pager replacement programs
Consider this example: A northern California hospital used more than 100 pagers for its nursing staff. The hospital’s large volume allowed it to negotiate a low rate of $5 per month for each digital pager, which included service and rental. The pager salesman persuaded the hospital telecom manager to purchase PRP for each unit at a cost of $1 per unit and a $25 deductible to replace a pager.

The manager later realized that the nurses were very gentle with the pagers. Only one pager was lost or damaged each month. To replace the one lost pager, the hospital had to pay the $25 deductible. After adding this $25 to the $100 already spent for PRP, the hospital was spending $125 each month to replace one pager it could have bought for only $50. The manager quickly canceled PRP and ended up saving the hospital more than $1,000 in the first year. Five nurses would have to lose their pagers each month before PRP was cost effective (see Table 1).


Table 1: Pager Replacement Programs: Calculating the Break-Even Point

To determine whether or not your organization should keep or cancel pager protection, calculate your own break-even point. Then, find out how many pagers are lost or damaged each month; if you do not know, the paging company should be able to tell you.

Companies that are rough on their pagers should keep PRP. A company of rugged construction workers who destroy half a dozen pagers each month may actually save money by using PRP.

Usage
Paging companies originally charged customers a flat rate each month, but over the past few years, this has changed. Today, some providers also charge as much as $0.25 per message, but they generally give the user the first 100 messages at no charge.

What is a T-1?

What is a T-1?
When telecom professionals say “T-1,” they probably mean one of the following four definitions:

- Access T-1: A connection from the customer’s premise to a long-distance carrier that provides access to the public-switched network. Access T-1s are generally provided by the local telephone company, but it is common for customers to receive a bill directly from the long-distance carrier (see Figure 1).


Figure 1: Customers use access T-1s to connect to their long-distance carriers.

- Internet T-1: A connection to an ISP. Medium to large-size companies use Internet T-1s for e-mail, Internet access, and Web hosting (see Figure 2).


Figure 2: Customers use T-1s to connect to their ISP.

Point-to-point T-1: A dedicated private line between two customer sites. Customers use these fixed connections for data and voice traffic between locations. If voice traffic is carried on the T-1, this is called a tie line, because the T-1 ties the two locations together (see Figure 3).


Figure 3: Customers use point-to-point T-1s to share data and voice traffic between locations.

- T-1 Bandwidth: Equals 1.544 Mbps, the capacity needed to carry 24 simultaneous phone calls.

T-3 service
T-3 service has 44.736 Mbps of bandwidth available. T-3s are normally only used by corporations and large universities. A T-3 has the capacity of 28 T-1s and can carry 672 simultaneous voice conversations. One T-3 usually costs the same as 8 to 10 T-1s.

All of these examples use dedicated private line technology. Circuit switching and packet switching are different technologies, but they are still measured by bandwidth.