Personally, if a carrier asks me to sign an NDA that would be my first sign to stay away. I'd still do it just to see what their prices are - but it does put me off and I am far less likely to purchase.
9 times out of 10 those who ask for NDA do so because they have something to hide. Whether it's bad pricing or worse. I don't really care what the reason is - what I do care about is that it's a waste of my time. If all I want is to "shop around" for better carriers I don't want to have to sign a bunch of NDAs to do so. It's annoying and pointless. So the bottom line is: NDAs keep legit customers away. Don't do it unless you actually need to. -- Nitzan Kon, CEO Future Nine Corporation http://www.future-nine.com/ --- On Fri, 5/8/09, SIP <[email protected]> wrote: > From: SIP <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [asterisk-biz] Dear Termination Providers, > To: "Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion" > <[email protected]> > Date: Friday, May 8, 2009, 1:31 PM > To some degree, carriers want to protect their pricing > structures > because it's an integral part of their competitive > business model. It's > a bit the way most retail stores will toss you out on the > curb if you > wander in with a notebook and start writing down the prices > of their items. > > However, the flip side of that argument is that, if > you're REALLY able > to compete in the market, you shouldn't be afraid that > your prices are > known by any and everyone. Sure, there's the chance > that Bob the > mom'n'pop carrier down the road might undercut you > for a tenth of a cent > or so on a highly desirable route, but if the ONLY think > you're selling > is price, you may as well pack up shop and find another > business. > Carrier routes are a commodity market. Price simply cannot > be the only > area in which you compete -- in fact, it probably > shouldn't be your > number one priority regardless. VoIP never gets bad press > because of its > price. It gets bad press because of quality, customer > service, > misleading or hidden contractual clauses, difficulty of > setup, or any > number of things that you simply can't put in an NDA > (and couldn't > enforce secrecy upon, even if you tried). > > Signing an NDA doesn't mean really anything about > whether or not your > customer is truly interested. Hell... anyone with a pen and > 20 seconds > of free time can sign an NDA. The only thing it > (nebulously) protects > from is you gathering rates from providers and telling > company X down > the road that you can beat their rates because you've > seen them > recently, and yours are better. I've signed numerous > NDAs in the last > half a decade with companies whose rates and terms were > laughable. It > seemed from their terms that they were hardly serious about > building a > serious business relationship, so I'm not sure I buy > the argument than > an NDA in some way delineates between the serious and the > non-serious > businesses. > > > N. > > -- > Neil Fusillo > CEO > Infinideas, inc. > http://www.ideasip.com _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com-- asterisk-biz mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz
