Reza, you're probably right that Stephane should have found a better way to deal with your account when it only contained a low usage DID. What he has in place now is the right solution ($50/yr min per account). As Stephane found out, it's better to just change the pricing so it works for the business and let customers decide if they want to stay or not. As a fellow entrepreneur, I've made some mistakes over the years as well (and have the arrows in my back to prove it).
Overall, Unlimitel is decent option in the market. We all know that the VoIP service provider market is a tough space, filled with companies where you don't know from day to day what the call quality will be like. And yes, it's mainly pre-paid where when your balance is $0, the traffic is turned off. The only other companies with great call quality and decent customer service (and that is debatable) are the traditional players (Rogers, Primus, etc) but their pricing is quite a bit higher. Hopefully, we've all vetted this issue now. -----Original Message----- From: Stephan Monette [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: August-04-10 6:49 AM To: Reza - Asterisk Consultant Cc: asterisk biz Subject: Re: [biz] Here's some maths for you. Reza, Just as an example, here's how we calculate our cost of support per DID: As an example, I will use some fake numbers as a total of employees and DIDs, but our average cost per DID is our real number. Let's say we support 35,000 DIDs in Canada with 15 full time person for billing, support, sales, network engineering, system admins... With an average salary of $45,000/year per staff, our DID support cost is $1.60/month per DID. If you had 2 DIDs and were spending $3.00/month, our cost in support was $3.20/month for your account. We then need to add other cost to this total like L.D. cost, local PRI-T1 access,... Now you see how we end up loosing a lot of money on very low usage VoIP accounts. And since we expanded our network last year to more cities in Ontario, we started getting a lot more very low usage accounts. I can't explain why we got so many low usage account but we needed to find a solution to make sure we get enough revenue from each customer to cover our costs. This is why we changed our procedure in February and we now ask customers to spend a minimum of $50.00/year in VoIP minutes. With this new change, our customers can keep their account active for a fair cost and we cover our minimum cost per customer. Some customers refused to pay the minimum of $50.00 in VoIP minutes per year and choose to move their service somewhere else and this is fine too. Stephan Monette Unlimitel Inc. Tel.: 1-877-464-6638 Fax: (613) 482-1077 On 2010-08-04, at 12:42 AM, Reza - Asterisk Consultant wrote: > *Dear Mark (and readers):** > > *As a TAUG promoter, TAUG evangelist, and someone who has contributed for > the benefit of TAUG and bringing/inviting over 100+ of my clients and > students to TAUG from different avenues of expertise, including but not > limited to promoting TAUG in major career fairs and providing Asterisk > training (while representing TAUG) at international venues world wide over > the past several years -- *without prejudice,* I have to interject here and > say that this **is** also the place to bring forth concerns against carriers > or service providers (not just recommendations) - for the benefit of > everyone else, no matter how bitter it may sound. > > Yes, the thread is ugly and though it may sound like a pissing contest (as > per your words) - it needs to be heard by those who are considering VoIP > services or have voip services from Unlimitel. > > I'm not going to speak for Keith, Alex, Bruce or Chuck -- though they are my > friends, business associates and also competitors for the past several > years. I am going to speak for myself about my experience with Unlimitel > and readers may interpret this as they see fit. No doubt, Alex isn't > happy, Keith, Bruce and Chuck are being diplomatic, but I'm going to be very > blunt. > > *On October 1st, 2009, 10:51 AM - I wrote to Stephan; *" *I got my own > PRI's and have my own capacity now, and marketing to Toronto based SMB & > SOHO. I need to port out 2 of my numbers. One is my home number and the > other is my business number. *416-xxx-xxxx and 416-xxx-xxxx. *Nothing > personal - just that I need more control over these numbers. The 3rd number > I have, I want to keep with you. Please advise which company holds the PRI > for my number and the main BTN - in order to ensure my port out request goes > smoothly.* " > > *Same day at 11:11 AM, I got a reply from him,* " *You will need to port > out all your number as we will now close your account. In your port request > just specify Bell as the carrier and Unlimitel as the reseller. Use your > billing information you have with Unlimitel in your request. Bell will check > your account status with our database to accept or reject the LNP > request. This > is your 30 days notice that we will be closing your account on November 1st > 2009 and we will refund any balance from your prepaid account on that date. > I checked your usage for the last 2 months and you used less than $6 in > minutes. So we can't keep your account with us with such low revenues. *" > > I have referred customers to Unlimitel over the past several years and had > them purchase their own accounts with their own credit card for termination > and origination. For each of these referrals, I had been offering Asterisk > hosting solutions. Each of them are light users with an average of 200-300 > minutes per month. So I knew Unlimitel's excuse to terminate me as a > client was... well... (fill in the blanks). I would caution you twice > before you do business with Unlimitel. Was I upset and am I upset at > Unlimitel? Absolutely! Anyone would be. > > I assure you, and I promise you - I am **not** the only person Unlimitel has > fired as a client. This entire SNAFU could have easily been avoided by > Unlimitel if they exercised a little more customer friendly professional > approach with elegant courtesy, reasonable time line, and/or parting away > under good terms. > > As per your quote, " *besides if you have nothing good to say, why say it, > this is supposed to be a community helping each other* " -- You say it, so > your fellow community members are cautioned about the true nature of certain > business owners and you say it, because you believe that is the right thing > to do. > > I commend Alex and Keith for taking the stand in addressing their concerns > openly and boldly. > > *With no regrets, > Reza.* > > > > On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 4:36 PM, Mark Palser <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Take this off board, really isn't the proper venue, besides if you have >> nothing good to say, why say it, this is supposed to be a community helping >> each other, not a place to have a pissing match. >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
