Bob, to close the loop on this, according to our rep we will save $4,800/year under the new AT&T agreement compared to the prior one. That's not quite as much as with Verizon. On the other hand, with AT&T we expect better service than we experienced during the three week attempted transition to Verizon. Dave K1ZZ From: Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ [mailto:dsumner@arrl.org] Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2010 4:29 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: RE: Telephones Bob, as I recall Barry said they were projected to be in the vicinity of $7,000 to $8,000 annually. The savings opportunity may not be lost by reverting to AT&T; that will be subject to negotiation. Right now our priority is to restore reliable service. Dave From: Bob Vallio [mailto:rbvallio@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2010 4:21 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: Re: Telephones What were the annual savings going to be? Bob -- W6RGG On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 12:10 PM, Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ <dsumner@arrl.org> wrote: Some of you are aware that recently we have had some problems with people being unable to connect to the in-house telephone conference bridge. Unfortunately, that was just the tip of the iceberg. We have had, and continue to have, a variety of ongoing problems with both outgoing and incoming calls. This came about because three weeks ago, in a good-faith effort to reduce the telephone bill and on the recommendation of the company that maintains our office telephones, Barry switched our service from AT&T to Verizon. It was supposed to be a seamless transition, but it turned out to be anything but. The last straw came today when Verizon provided conflicting information and gave us no reason to believe they would EVER get it right - or for that matter, that they would be responsive to problems in the future. The switch was based entirely on cost savings; we have not had service problems with AT&T. So we are going back to AT&T. I don't know how smoothly the transition back will go - at this point I have no expectation that any technology company can get it right the first time - but at least with AT&T (unlike Verizon) we have the phone numbers of people who will actually talk to us and know how to solve problems. I'm beginning to think the Luddites may have a point. Dave K1ZZ