Telegroup Global Access VIP

Global Access VIP Description

Global Access VIP was originally developed for residential and small business users who could not, or would not commit to the monthly minimums of GA CallBack. GA VIP service is now also for large businesses as we eliminated whole minute billing and limits to the number of callback lines that the original GA VIP service had. GA VIP has some important differences from GA CallBack. First and foremost, the signal call is answered by our switch, after which the customer enters a PIN (personal identification number) code.

The customer is charged by the PTT for making this short signal call, but the charge is nominal in most countries where PTTs bill in brief "pulses."

Answered Signal Calling may be the Future of CallBack

The future of the callback industry could well be this GA VIP type of answered signal calling. The PTTs and major U.S. carriers do not want unanswered signaling to continue as it uses their facilities at no charge to the customer and at the same time, takes customers away from them because of lower rates. They have attempted to influence governments to outlaw unanswered signal calling and have succeeded in some areas of the world. Answered signal calling solves this problem because customers pay the PTTs for the signal calls to our switches.

Global Access VIP Details

GA VIP has no minimum invoice requirements. The per-minute rates are the same as for GA CallBack but the billing is in 30/30 increments. There is no limit on the number of callback lines for GA VIP.

To further reduce the cost of providing this service, Telegroup only prints an invoice if the charges are $50 or greater. If the charges are less, they are "rolled" forward up to three months at which time an invoice is printed if the amount is over $10.

NOTE: Individual VIP customers (not businesses) must pay VIP invoices by credit card or automatic bank debit. Direct invoicing with bank wire payment is not an option for individuals. (see GA Billing section for details of billing options)

Summary of Global Access VIP service:

• Answered signal calls followed by 6-digit PIN code
• Unlimited number of callback lines
• No minimum monthly invoice
• 30/30 billing

Intra-European Savings

Intra-European savings resulted from the installation of our first European switch allowing us to offer competitive pricing within Europe. This does not mean savings are restricted to Europe; there are savings to most of the rest of the world as well. Because of our ever changing carrier routing schemes, the list of European countries receiving intra-European savings continues to change. The countries with intra-European savings as of 11/95 include:
Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and UK.
For a current list, please contact the European Sales Support team.

Customers in this group of countries must order GA VIP or Faxsaver (see below). GA CallBack is not an option for them because it would not provide intra-European savings as it originates calls in the U.S. instead of Europe.

How To Use Global Access VIP

As with GA CallBack, the GA VIP training process begins with the faxed New Orders Entered Report letting you know when your customer was provisioned. Instead of phone number pairs, the report will show PIN numbers corresponding to the callback numbers at the customer's location. Again, it is your responsibility to make sure the customer has an accurate list of these pairs of numbers. Below are the points to cover with the customer:

1. To use GA VIP, you MUST have a touch-tone telephone.
2. Dial the U.S. telephone number 1-212-257-1111.
3. You will hear a special dial tone. Enter the PIN number corresponding to the number you wish to be called back at, followed by the first 2 digits of the country code of the location you are calling and then the # key.
4. Hang up and you will be called back IMMEDIATELY.
5. When you pick up the telephone, you will hear the Global Access dial tone.
6. For calls to the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean, dial 1 + area code + number. For calls to all other countries, dial country code + number. If you are using the Accounting Code feature, you will be prompted to enter your accounting code.
7. To make additional calls without hanging up, just press the # key after your first call is completed. You will receive our dial tone again and may place as many calls as you like (this spreads out the cost of the initial signal call over more calls).
8. If you realize that you have misdialed, press the * key on your phone to get a new dial tone. If you get a busy signal or no answer, you can press the # key for new dial tone.

Global Access Faxsaver

Due to the cost of making the initial signal call via the PTT, Global Access VIP is not an appropriate service for very short calls. If it costs a customer 15 cents to signal for the callback, and we offer savings of 10 cents per minute compared to the PTT, you can see that it would take 1.5 minutes just to recover the cost of the signal call. This is not suitable for faxing, which often involves many short calls. Since we do want to capture our European customers' fax traffic, we made some special accommodations for fax lines and created Global Access Faxsaver.

GA Faxsaver is intended for use only on fax lines and is available only to customers in the European group. It utilizes unanswered signal calling (GACB) with 30/06 billing, and 2 DID numbers. The customer must remember to dial their U.S. DID number for faxes outside the European group and their European DID number for faxes within the group. The minimum billing is $50 per fax line.