In difficult economic times, businesses find that they must restructure and make cutbacks to survive. What they often overlook are their current telecommunication services being provided from their current local, long and data providers. Some companies think about picking up the phone and calling a couple of the larger facility based carriers and get a price, leaving out the smaller carriers out of the bidding process.Most of the time, this is not the way to get the most service for your telecommunication dollar. Others simply stay where they are, afraid to make changes that might cause them issues or headaches; "After all, I need to save real dollars and all carriers are about the same, so it's not worth it. . Carriers will offer a better price if they have proof that you are shopping the market. No matter what carrier you ultimately choose it’s to your advantage to know what’s available across the board. " A Reseller?…. you have to be kidding me." First, be aware that every carrier buys service from other carriers. That means AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, buy capacity from one another. They also buy services from smaller regional providers as well. Your calls and data are already on multiple networks today, being with a reseller isn’t going to change that. "So …Why do I want a Reseller? What Change is there?" What changes, is the ability to talk to a live person without going through multiple prompts on your telephone. You will find many Resellers have advanced network platforms that get your company technology that isn’t available from the big three. A great example of this is the" InContact " from "United Carrier Network". This call center product allows you to hire employees anywhere in the world; yet manage them the same way you could if they were in the office right next to you. "What happens if I choose one of these smaller companies and they don’t survive?" Today’s world of large corporate bailouts may cause you to think twice about a smaller company. The fact, is that many of the smaller telecommunication companies are more financially stable than their larger competitor. These companies have taken advantage of the glut of bandwidth. . Even when a carrier fails, the FCC DOES NOT ALLOW the facility base carrier to disconnect the customers until the customer had an opportunity to move services to another carrier. "What if the underlying carrier has an issue?" If your problem is a major outage, your services will come up at the same time that the services are restored for the underlying carriers’ customers. If it more a localized issue you may find the reseller will push harder to get it resolved then you would if you worked directly with carrier. AT&T is aware how well the reseller model works. They created their own AT&T reseller; ACC Business. How can ACC Business be a reseller and be facilities based AT&T at the same time? ACC Business operates like a smaller carrier, lower costs and excellent customer service. All ACC Business employees are in fact AT&T employees and all services are provisioned on AT&T’s network. If the customer is on the AT&T side of AT&T they have to go through multiple phone prompts and they have to go to an automated trouble ticket center to turn in a trouble ticket. If the customer is on the ACC side of AT&T they get to speak to a live person immediately. The amazing thing is that the customer is getting better more personal service at a lower cost. So if you are looking for advanced technology, aggressive pricing, flexible billing and great customer service a reseller may be your best choice. The only way to find out is to ask. At Doctor Telco Inc. we have agreements with all the major carriers and resellers alike. We would be more than happy to give your business a free comparison. The worst thing that could happen .. You find out that you are spending more each month than you need to, and can save someone's job.