Who is long distance carrier

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Student Lending. Conviction Review Bureau. Free Educational Programs. Human Trafficking Initiative. Immigration Services Fraud Initiative. Land Bank Community Revitalization. NY Open Government. Pennies for Charity. Canceling will probably cost you a one-time fee that is charged by your local telephone company as an administrative cost. Thereafter, you will not be billed for long distance usage fees, minimum monthly fees, or universal service charges if you have no usage. If you wish to make any changes to your long distance service, call your local telephone company.

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Your intra-LATA company handles long distance calls within your local toll calling area. Your inter-LATA company handles long distance calls outside your local toll calling area including in-state, state-to-state and international calling. Most companies carry both types of calls. Your local telephone company and the Minnesota Department of Commerce can tell you which companies offer these services in your area, and provide contact information for the companies.

You may be surprised to learn there are over companies offering long distance service in Minnesota! Do you call mostly within Minnesota? Do you call all across the country? Do you call internationally? What time of day do you make most of your calls? Do you typically make very short or very long calls? To do your best bargain shopping, you need to be aware of your typical calling activity and other needs. A telephone company can best match a plan to your needs if you explain your distinctive calling habits.

These special plans can be a good deal, but make sure they apply to the type of calls you are likely to make. In these cases, you may be getting a deal on telephone service, but paying more overall by adding these other services. Other deals usually apply only to calls made outside of our state. Most of the time you will pay more for calls made within Minnesota. Long distance companies are currently moving toward direct billing of their customers rather than combining their bill with the customers local telephone bill.

Recently, many long distance companies have begun to add a charge for billing their services on your local telephone bill. You may be willing to pay a fee for the convenience of writing only one check to cover local and long distance telephone service. Direct billing, on the other hand, can mean less confusion on your local telephone bill and more accountability by your long distance company. When dealing with long distance carriers, make sure you understand all the rates, time of day restrictions, and limits of any promotional offers.

Do not focus only on the per-minute price, but make sure to take into account monthly service fees and other charges that could be applied to your account. Minnesota law requires long distance companies to tell you their rates when they are selling their service. They are also required to send you a printed price list when you start service. Many people report that they did not receive the rates they were quoted over the phone and are unable to remedy the situation.

Customers must call the toll-free number, access the verification system, and give their name, address, the carrier you want to change to, and phone number.

Every carrier that provides residential service in California and Georgia may have its own twist on TPV services, so you may be asked additional questions. However, the general format is the same. As you are reciting your information, the system tapes everything you say and sends the verification to your new carrier so your order can be processed.

In these states, this is a process that every carrier must follow, regardless of their size or track record. Understanding the timeline When all the paperwork is complete and you are through the legal hurdles, your new long-distance carrier has to submit the order to your local carrier and then wait for a response.

Your local carrier is the company that controls all calls on regular phone lines, routing them to your assigned long-distance carrier, so making sure the local carrier is in the loop is essential. You have to wait about three to five business days for the local carrier to process or reject your order. When the order is accepted, your local carrier assigns your new long-distance carrier to your phone lines.

Explaining your rejections If your order for long distance is rejected by your local carrier, all is not lost. There is an industry standard for this process and some general guidelines to prevent orders from dropping off the face of the earth.

An order can be rejected for many reasons, and the industry has created a series of four-digit codes called Transaction Code Status Indicators or TCSI codes, to help relay the status of your order, including information about whether it is confirmed which means it was completed , or rejected and why it was rejected.

Every local carrier has its own spin on the TCSI codes, but some of the numbers are standard in the industry. Table shows a small section of TCSI codes and gives you a sample of what they look like. The first two digits give you a general idea of the status of the order, and the last two digits give you the specifics.

Table represents an extremely small sampling of the codes that can appear on a migration request for a new long-distance carrier. As you can see, the codes that start with 20 are completed; codes that start with 21 are simple rejections.

Your order could be delayed or rejected for any of several thousand reasons. Similarly, if your company just merged with another company, and your billing address and company name changed TCSI code , the order is rejected. Any rejections that occur delay the migration to your new carrier at least three to five more business days.

Completing the move without rejections and other hassles The easiest way to change long-distance providers is to call your local carrier and request the new carrier. The PIC, and sometimes called the CIC, for carrier identification code, is the four-digit number that your local carrier uses to identify your long-distance network.

Table gives you a glimpse at some PIC codes and the carriers they represent. Every long-distance carrier has at least one PIC code, and you need to know it, especially if you are changing to a lesser-known carrier.

The issue is that the smaller companies evolve over time and are more likely to be bought, sold, merged with other companies, and experience name changes. All three entities have the same PIC code, but the list used by the local carriers to cross-reference the code with the name may be years out of date, hundreds of companies long, and sorted by company name, not PIC code.

Knowing the right code prevents most local carriers from searching for the PIC code on your behalf, and reduces the possibility of errors.