Berlin Pacific Vendor Management 212-247-2502 sales@berlinpacific.

com
T Te el le ec co om m M Ma an na ag ge em me en nt t: :
B Be ey yo on nd d C Co os st t S Sa av vi in ng gs s
Here are a few examples of how Berlin Pacific went beyond saving money to help clients find
the right solutions in the ever evolving telecom marketplace to meet their current business
needs. Weve successfully helped clients navigate the procurement of carrier services based on
new technologies, increasing quality of services and enabling innovative new services that
resulted in increased productivity.

A Voice Network for Today and Tomorrow
Client Goals
A client with several dozen USA locations did not know of a carrier voice solution that would
support their migration to new VOIP PBXs without incurring substantial unanticipated costs. We
worked with the clients preferred vendor, and we were able to find a product that would be
compatible with legacy PBXs and the new PBXs without any substantial new costs.
Their goals were:
Roll out new PBXs.
Support call transfers between offices, enabling the larger regional offices to
handle inbound calls for smaller offices in their region.
Maintain current DR standards, and create redundant PBX infrastructure.
Enable flexible and quick install of new PBXs (and support legacy equipment.)

Customer Barriers
The customer in their research discovered multiple unanticipated problems with the potential
carrier products available:
Carriers products would require the purchase of expensive additional hardware and
software licenses from the PBX vendor to integrate offices, locally supporting call
transfers between offices and redundant PBXs.
If the primary data network were to go down voice and data would fail, unless the client
spent even more money buying larger backup data circuits.



Berlin Pacific Vendor Management 212-247-2502 sales@berlinpacific.com
The circuits were under contract. Old circuits werent compatible with the new PBXs.
New circuits werent compatible with the old PBXs. This made it impossible to flexibly
install PBXs according to the clients timetable instead of the carriers contract end
dates.
It would take a while to replace legacy equipment. The incumbent vendor would require
a new circuit for new equipment. We had also shown them they had opportunities to
buy cheaper replacement circuits now for circuits coming off contract. They wanted
something that was backwards and forwards compatible so they would not be forced to
do a second install in conjunction with the new PBXs.

Solution
We discussed the current situation with the clients telecom staff and management, and
documented their goals and requirements. We worked with their current favorite vendor to
find a solution. Together we found an aggressively priced product that was in reality a data
product but could be rapidly configured as needed to support TDM or SIP handoffs, even
supporting faxing, as well as supporting WAN and Internet traffic.
Solution features included:
Supported both new and legacy PBXs.
Supported call forwarding and transfers between offices, without the need for
additional substantial capital expenditures on PBX hardware and licenses. Small offices
would also not necessarily require any PBX hardware, only the phones, further reducing
costs.
Support for PBXs serving multiple locations no single network point of failure.
DR improved by Free data network included in the price. No need to purchase
additional data circuit capacity.
Easy to reconfigure to support new PBXs, increasing deployment schedule flexibility.
Similar cost to low cost PRIs they originally hoped to deploy.
Enabled removal of overpriced legacy voice circuits.
Free data network would make it easier to remove in a few years the overpriced legacy
data network in favor of the preferred vendors solution. Opportunity in the near term
to remove some legacy data network services further reducing costs.
After we presented this solution to the client they said: with the dynamic T1s being priced to
similar to a PRI we can pull this off without occurring any significant additional costs. and we
can silently go about building a converged voice and data network with the new carrier and
the new PBX vendor. The client immediately began purchasing the new solution for each
location.



Berlin Pacific Vendor Management 212-247-2502 sales@berlinpacific.com
To help enable the deployment of the solution, we worked with the carrier to:
1. Bring in an installation partner who did all the on site work so the IT people in HQ didn't
have to fly to the other offices for install. This saved the client a lot of time and
accelerated deployment.
2. Coordinate scheduling with legacy voice contract end dates.
3. Project manage moves, down to moving all DIDs, ensuring correct paper work to and
from legacy and new vendors, etc.
The client successfully deployed the solution with minimal work load. For no extra charge the
solution supported their new PBXs, especially interoffice call flow and PBX redundancy, and
provided improved WAN DR while also allowing additional cost savings.

Aligning the Data Network
One of our clients had a large MPLS with a correspondingly large paper bill. After creating a
database to give visibility in to the spending, we reviewed the purchased services with our
client. When reviewing the services we ensured the client was aware of the services being
purchased at different locations. In particular we pointed out charges for ADD'L SERIAL PORT
and NON-IP PROTOCOL, which were inconsistently purchased across their IP network.

These were services for the old mainframe communication system. Locations would connect to
the mainframe via a serial port on the router, not IP, and the router would also have to use a
non-IP protocol to communicate with other routers. With the new MRP system there was no
need for these services at any location.
We also discovered charges for PRI and BRI ports at locations that did not use BRI and PRI ports
for backup.
After a quick discussion the client agreed the services should be removed, and we implemented
the change, tracking the changes to the MPLS bills each month.

Helping Telecom Carriers with their Carriers
One of our clients is a small local carrier in Pennsylvania. With many residential and business
customers they handled a lot of long distance calls. Even as a wholesale customer they were



Berlin Pacific Vendor Management 212-247-2502 sales@berlinpacific.com
facing 28% rate increase, and were already spending around $100,000 a month. We helped
them select appropriate long distance solutions.

Current Situation:
Small LEC in eastern PA.
Using TDM for voice.
Facing an increase in rates with a flat rate per minute.
Had serious quality issues with old providers.
Looking for ways to minimize costs and increase QoS.

Approach
After learning about the clients current situation and traffic details, we used our network of
contacts to reach out to solution providers. We looked for providers who were vetted by our
independent experts as providing great rates and high quality Tier 1 service suitable for
wholesale customers.

Proposal: SIP over Public IP
We discovered SIP over public IP had become the standard and preferred method for wholesale
termination of long distance calls. TDM was being phased out, but while less common and a bit
more expensive it was not impossible to buy. While a private IP connection could be created,
every provider said that as long as the client had a Tier 1 internet provider, SIP over public IP
would work very well. (We could also help with sourcing backbone public IP and private IP
connections with appropriate service levels at reasonable wholesale prices.) Public IP also made
testing and changing traffic patterns easier.
Especially helpful was the disaster recovery perspective with public IP connections to
redundant carrier gateways, the clients multiple single points of failure in their TDM solution
would be eliminated.

Reducing Points of Failure



Berlin Pacific Vendor Management 212-247-2502 sales@berlinpacific.com
The client did in fact have single points of failure, and had suffered consequences, despite the
engineered robustness of traditional telecom solutions.
SIP removed the TDM single point of failure connecting to a Long Distance IXC switch. If the
client went with a private IP connection to the LD carriers, they could connect via public IP if the
private IP went down. If one of the long distance carriers switches went down the client would
automatically connect to a different one.
Having multiple IP providers was also a good idea. (We could also help source that if needed.)
Long Distance providers had multiple points of failure when connecting over SIP and public IP
so usually the point of failure for any long distance client is the clients internet connection or
the clients switch.
We also recommended maintaining their connection with Verizon. Just in case a new provider
had a problem with an obscure route, traffic could then be sent to Verizon.
One issue to determine with any backup provider was how quickly they could accept traffic sent
to them if the primary provider goes down. (All providers said this was unlikely given the
redundancy.) Generally it seemed to take a week or two to add capacity. We offered to search
specifically for a provider that would always keep spare capacity on hand however our
experts indicate that this is overkill. The Verizon connection would also offer spare capacity.
All in all the new solution would be an improvement over the old TDM solution with multiple
points of failure.

Understanding Vendors Rates
The client was being billed on a flat per minute rates. We pointed out that average rates in
wholesale voice arent really fixed, the real rate would really be based on the LCR (Least Cost
Routing) rates of the underlying carriers. To keep everyone honest we advised that billed rates
be transparently based on the LATA/OCN rates of the carrier they choose, not based on some
arbitrary fixed rate for all traffic when the actual rates are based on variable traffic patterns.
This would remove any encouragement to overcharge the client when their costs went down,
or the need to engage in re-negotiations of a fixed rate.
We also discovered the probable reason for the increase in the clients rates with their existing
LD provider. The client made a large number of long duration calls - 44% of traffic was from
calls over 60 minutes in length, and 6% of all traffic was for calls over 1,000 minutes in length.
The longest calls cost their underlying carrier 4 times the average cost of a call from the client,
and ten times the cost of calls to big cities.



Berlin Pacific Vendor Management 212-247-2502 sales@berlinpacific.com

Client Reaction
The client ultimately moved forward with all of our proposals. After seeing that VOIP
technology had evolved sufficiently to exceed their current services levels, they decided they
could now justify upgrading their switch infrastructure to support SIP. We were also able to use
Berlin Pacifics market intelligence to negotiate with the incumbent long distance vendor and
prevent the proposed rate increase. Once the technology was in place, the client was able to
roll out a SIP over IP solution with multiple long distance providers. This saved a substantial
portion of their $1,200,000 long distance budget, it also resulted in lower long distance costs
for a new telecom product they had developed, and it eliminated the multiple single points of
failure plaguing them.


Berlin Pacific Vendor Management - Anything Less Is A Waste Of Money.