Over the past twenty years advising on telecommunications agreements for our clients, Converged Services has dealt with various timelines to review and negotiate existing agreements. Our clients have partnered with us anywhere from years before the existing agreement expires up to months prior to the expiration date.
While negotiating a new telecommunications agreement is not an exact science, there is an opportune time to begin the negotiation process for copious reasons.
If you are in a current telecommunications agreement, Converged Services suggests that you begin your partnership with us around the three-year mark prior to the existing agreement's expiration date. This means that you do not have to wait until the last year of the existing agreement's term to start discussions for a new agreement. The most important reason is for non-incumbent service providers to enter the market to allow for a more competitive bid from all participating providers. However, there are additional, important reasons that the three-year mark prior to existing expiration is opportune and these reasons all have the common theme of time.
- Timing is very important when advising on a new telecommunications agreement. Not only is time necessary to negotiate with the incumbent as well as alternative providers, but also to allow for the alternative provider to build and deliver their infrastructure and services to your community, if you were to choose the alternative bid.
- Additionally, time is needed for board members, property managers, developers, real estate investors, or any other key stakeholders to be present and available to ultimately decide on which telecommunications provider offers the best products and services for the community and residents.
- With a new agreement comes change, regardless if the community is staying with their current telecommunications provider or an alternative provider. With this change, you must permit time to notify residents properly of the new products and services available to the community as well as to allow for a transition phase for the new products and services to be properly implemented. This may require returning old equipment to the provider in order to receive new equipment or coordinating with seasonal residents who may be out of town during the negotiating and contract phases of the new telecommunications agreement.
If you have more than three years left on your existing telecommunications agreement, there is still opportunity in partnering with Converged Services, such as negotiating with your current provider to add more robust products or services to your existing agreement, reviewing options of cellular or wireless revenue streams with our Connect services, or reviewing your current property management lifestyle software with our Control services. 
