Member Programs Telecommunications Plans
Protect your program and participants against subpoena for call records.
Service & Rates
Endorsements & Success Stories
Polk County Florida had an $800 monthly bill for their toll free status line, caused by jail prisoners hacking their toll free number. Telecompute installed a time clock for periods when status calls would be received and a fraud prevention system that reduced the monthly bill to $25.
Charleston SC used the national tip line and also a local number which had been published for years. Their answering service charges were escalating because calls to their local number were going directly to the answering service. Telecompute brought their local number into its network, installed a menu, and separated actual tips from administrative calls. Charges from the answering service dropped and they were able to afford the after hours answering for both numbers.
SW Florida sent all of their tip calls directly to an answering service. Like many programs, they were given a toll free number to forward calls to. The cost of that 800 service was embedded in their bill. By routing their calls direct to a local number at the answering service, Telecompute eliminated $2,000 from their annual answering service bill AND their Program 800 costs dropped as well. All of the tip lines converted to the Program now have the capacity to answer more calls than ever before, all without paying a penny more for their answering service (often less) while reducing the transport costs for their existing numbers.
Security
Every Crime Stoppers Program pledges anonymity to participants and does their best to protect the identity of callers. The Telecompute Corporation designed the Crime Stoppers telecommunications program to specifically address the potential problem of subpoena by a law enforcement agency.
This is accomplished by the prevention of a complete call record from ever being developed. When a call comes into the switch, the call is “answered” by equipment which creates only a partial record at the carrier level. The call is then re-originated to the ultimate destination and connected. The delay is negligible, but the effect is to prevent a complete carrier call record from ever being created.
Telecompute then takes the additional step of “scrubbing” all Crime Stoppers call records after 30 days.
The result of this procedure is:
- There is never a call record in the Program files or on the bill
- There is no complete call record linking caller with recipient
- All partial records are destroyed after 30 days
Economy
Every participating Program is eligible for significant savings on a range of telecommunications products and services. In addition to the national tip line, every Program is eligible for discounts that guarantee you will pay less than you might already pay.
These savings are brought about in three ways:
First, by virtue of being part of the Program you are eligible for the savings that come with economy of scale.
Second, because the Telecompute Corporation is an enhanced service bureau, not a carrier, the taxes you pay are only those levied upon the wholesale costs that they pay.
Finally, every call is converted to an interstate call, as opposed to an intrastate call that any carrier is obliged to provide. This eliminates any requirement to pay intrastate tax rates on long distance transport rates which are generally higher than interstate rates, and often duplicative of federal rates.
Effectiveness
Call answering capacity is rarely an issue. But when a big case breaks, it can make the difference between getting the critical tip and doing without vital information.
Many Programs also use an answering service for after hours activity. They often use “call forwarding” to send the calls to that service. What they may or may not realize is that the call forwarding capacity is limited to that one line they are paying the phone company for.
The answering service usually has a much greater capacity to answer calls than any individual program. Using that capacity in an emergency can be automatically accomplished by any participating Program.
Here’s how it works: In addition to their switches, Telecompute Corporation employs additional recources to provide “call supervision” which allows them to differentiate between a connected call, a “busy” signal, and an unanswered call.
Using “call supervision” your Program can eliminate “call forwarding” because any unanswered call will be routed to your alternative site – automatically. Because “call supervision” can also detect a “busy” signal, any and all overflow will be automatically routed to your alternate site. The flood of calls in response to a TV spot usually subsides after 10 minutes. You want to capture as many calls in that first 10 minutes as you can.