The Enigmatic Telephone Bill (3) - What is a Tier discount?

In my series of posts on the Enigmatic Telephone Bill I am talking about the complexity of price plans and services, explaining various discounts that are used by telephone companies and showing how easy it is for the telephone companies to miscalculate your bill.

In My previous post, I talked about a Tier discount rate plan I have.
This post is about Tier Discount. This type of discount is a type of Volume Discount, which is based on the volume of your usage.

Here is how it works:
If you talk up to 100 minutes a month, your rate, let's say is 0.4$ a minute.
If you talk more than 100 minutes, but up to 200, your rate is 0.35$ a minute.
If you talk more than 200 minutes, but up to 400, your rate is 0.28$ a minute.
If you talk more than 400 minutes, your rate is 0.25$ a minute.
This type of discount "encourages" you to talk more.

When the monthly bill is calculated, the Billing system collects all the relevant calls.
In many cases not all the calls are included in this discount.
For example, if you have a family & friends plan, the calls in this plan may not be included in the Tier discount.
Then the total minutes of the relevant calls is calculated against the tiers.
If you follow your bill during the month, you see the calls rated with the basic rate which does not show the Tier discount.

I hope this is helpful.

On top of Your Telephone Bill, You have to pay for paying it....

In a very interesting article, from TelecomTV, http://www.telecomtv.com/comspace_newsDetail.aspx?n=45261&id=e9381817-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10#, you can see that telephone companies never cease to surprise us, regarding charges they put on us.

The Enigmatic Telephone Bill (2)

In my series of posts on the Enigmatic Telephone Bill I am talking about the complexity of price plans and services, explaining various discounts that are used by telephone companies and showing how easy it is for the telephone companies to miscalculate your bill.

In this post, I will share with you my telephone bill.

Actually I get 5 telephone bills! One bill from my cellular provider, one from my internet provider, one from my international calling provider and 2 from my land line provider – one for each line. You probably would suggest to me to have my bills on line, or via e-mail, but I am an old school woman, who, for accounting purposes prefers to have her expenses documented on paper.

So, I will pick my cellphone bill, mainly because EVERYODY has a cell phone (at least all my followers….).
For my cellular provider, I am one customer with one account and 5 subscribers. I get one monthly bill for all my subscribers. Luckily for the operator, I pay my subscribers in full. Sometimes there is a split charge, when the subscriber pays part of the total. I will discuss Split Charge in the future.

There are 3 different rate plans for my subscribers.
One is very simple and straight forward. Unfortunately, the rate per minute is the highest of all 3. In this rate plan, the subscriber is charged a fix monthly charge, and then a fix rate per minute.

In the second rate plan, there is a monthly charge, which is deducted from the usage charge. In addition, I defined 10 numbers within the operator network, for which, each 2 minutes are considered as 1 minute for charging purposes. Actually, when I signed for this rate plan, I was told that for these 10 numbers I get 50% discount, which apparently is not the case.
This rate plan is considered Tier discount. Depending on the total monthly usage (total minutes), the rate per minute is set. The more you talk, the less you pay (per minute). Now, because the calculation for my preferred 10 numbers is as explained above, I reach a lower tier.
The bill shows you the rate per minute you are charged. Unfortunately, the operator updates these tiers once in a while, and it is difficult to keep track.

The third rate plan is the most complicated of the 3. Different rates for week days and weekend days. Free text messages at night. Content services with fix and/or per usage charges, 10 preferred numbers with discount, etc.

Confused? I am! And I designed Telephone Bills, I developed and implemented Billing systems, I conducted investigation into Billing systems as a result of customer complaints.

In my next posts I will discuss Rating issues, over and under charging, discounts and other Billing concepts.

Stay tuned!

Rumors of the death of fixed voice telephony greatly exaggerated

Do you think that Cell Phones just killed the Fix Line Telephony?
Well, think again.
Attached is a link of a very interesting post on the subject, by Martyn Warwick, published on TelecomTV.
http://www.telecomtv.com/comspace_newsDetail.aspx?n=45179&id=e9381817-0593-417a-8639-c4c53e2a2a10
Enjoy.

The Enigmatic Telephone Bill

You get it once a month, maybe once in two months. Maybe you don't get it at all and go online to read it.
Isn't it like a riddle? Don't you look at it and try to figure out what does it mean?
You try to correlate the figures you see to the promises you heard from the sales person a while ago.
You try to figure out how much a minute of call costs you. How much for incoming call, how much for outgoing calls, how much in - network, how much out of network, how much for roaming. Wow! How complicated it is.
I am going to discuss the Telephone Bill in my next few posts. Keep following.
You are welcome to send to me your telephone bill and I will use it as example.