atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Telecommunications Company Wanting Our Business

Can anyone tell me what's up with this company? Birch Telecom - (a telecommunications business). . . they are calling.wanting me to give my OK for them to check my telephone bills so they can offer me much better rates than we are currently getting. She was saying they can take Bell South and transfer ownership to them so they can offer me much lower rates. (something like that)

As you all know by now from a prior thread, I am not a Techie when it comes to all this telephone stuff - hey!! I am learning though - thanks to all of you. :>)

Is it worth looking into? Do they sub-lease to Bell South or what????

https://www.birch.com/
Reseller there are lots of them around, some good some not. They buy bundles from the local telco for a discounted price and resell them. Best bet is to check with some of their other customers, many have hidden cost that don't show up until after you switch.

also, some ask for reallllly long contract agreements. And I've seen at least one go belly up and the users all lost thier lines when the telco got court permission to turn off thier T's, to make matters worse the clients were paying by lease from a third party who still wanted to be paid for the equipment.
mark

You can save A LOT of money by going with a CLEC over BellSouth!

Many CLECS offer expanded calling areas. In other words, some calls that use to be long distance may now be free. There might cities which are close to your location but normally considered long distance.

Many of them also provide extra features such as call waiting, caller ID at no additional cost(unlike bell south)

I would strongly recommend you to compare the deal. Bell South really rips people off to be honest.

My personal bills are over 50% less then with bell south.

Let me know how it turns out.

fwiw............birch is pulling out of the east texas area. i have tons of birch customers calling now because they are switching back to sbc

There is more than 1 CLEC. BellSouth has horrible service and their prices are outrageously unfair. Many of the BellSouth systems are over 20 years old.

I have found the CLEC to have all the latest technology and much better service. I have literally spend close to 1 hour trying to actually get a live person on the phone with BellSouth.

If a CLEC company can give you better service, customer support and a large price savings. Then why not give them your business over a company like BellSouth that treats they customers like trash.

We have a CLEC going belly up in our area due to some recent legislation. Now we are trying to win back their old customers as returning SBC customers, since we are SBC dealers/agents.

[This message has been edited by 5years&counting (edited January 12, 2005).]

I don't know about anywhere else in the country , but Birch does a good job here in Dallas price wise, medium on customer service. My order ranking for CLEC'S here is CBeyond, Time Warner then Birch. Everyone else is chop liver.

We always try and discourage our customers from switching away from Bellsouth. Let's say you get mad at the Bell guy and kick him out, call a new company to give them your business. Guess who shows up to install the circuits for your "new" lines, yep the same guy you just kicked out. Only bad thing is now, your not "his" customer anymore and you just thought you had bad service and response times before! And wait until the line goes down, you call your new company they in turn call Bellsouth after a week or two of "it's the other guys problem" you may end up on the work order list.....way down the list. At least that's how it seems to work here. I've have seen it take literally months past the "due date" for customers who have switched to get there lines moved 2 blocks down the street. Sometimes saving a little money isn't saving at all.

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Never criticize a man without walking a mile in his shoes...... by then you'll be a mile away, plus you've got his shoes.

Just have them sign a paper stating they will pay you for all lost business for every day your phone lines are down on the switchover.