Tips for cutting telecom costs.

The telecommunications spend area is so wrought with inefficiency that most enterprises don't know how much they spend on telecom services, never mind how they can manage those budgets." So says the Aberdeen Group, which maintains that large corporations can potentially save tens of millions of dollars a year--or as much as 10 percent of network costs--by taking proactive steps to implement controls.

Glen S. Kazerman, executive vice president and co-founder of Broadmargin, a Virginia-based telecom outsourcing and application service provider, believes that many CFOs and other finance executives are missing the opportunity to reduce these expenses, which can often be an enterprise's third- or fourth-largest cost.

He offers a list of common telecom billing and cost-control errors:

* Outright billing mistakes, such as when new contracts are not reflected in the bill, inappropriate state or federal taxes are assessed, credits are not applied, discontinued circuits continue to be billed, etc.

* Failure by the telecommunications company to correct the identified mis takes in a timely manner.

* Failure to track telecommunications companies' announcements of short-term cost savings opportunities and billing changes and to take advantage of these savings.

* Failure to use existing plan features most effectively.

* Failure to confirm all network and telecom circuits and to make sure this is accurately reflected on invoices.

* Failure to sign onto the most effective/appropriate plans.

* Failure to manage vendors and negotiate as effectively as possible.

* Failure to remove from service redundant equipment and connections.

* Failure to consolidate multiple narrow-band lines and ports. (For instance, a company may be able to consolidate its separate lines for its switchboard, credit card readers, PC connections to corporate applications and Internet access into higher-bandwidth connections.)