GuideWireless & IoT · 6 min
We have thousands of phone lines and the bill makes no sense. How do we fix it?
Audit every line, cut the ones nobody uses, then bid the rest across carriers with device management in the same plan. One bill you can actually read.
The Clectiv team ·
A corporate mobile bill grows by accident. Lines get added, people leave, plans never change, and every department keeps its own account. Nobody's wasting money on purpose, and nobody's watching it either.
Where does a corporate mobile bill go wrong?#
In the lines nobody looks at. Pull every account and every line into one list before you talk to a carrier.
- Lines nobody uses. The person left, and the line stayed.
- The wrong plans. Unlimited data for people who barely use it, small plans for people who blow through them.
- No pooling. Each line has its own allowance, so some waste data while others pay overage.
- Accounts everywhere. Every site or department with its own account, so nobody sees the whole bill.
The plan asks the rest, from roaming and add-ons to phones still being paid off after they were replaced.
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| User and department | Who to ask before you cut it. |
| Last three months of usage | Calls, texts and data, to find unused and mismatched lines. |
| Plan and add-ons | What you're paying for on that line. |
| Device and payment status | Who owns the phone, and whether it's still being paid off. |
| Account and contract | Which account it sits on, and when that contract ends. |
Ask before you cut. A line with no calls might be a backup phone, a tablet in a truck, or an alarm. Check with the department first, then cancel.
Before you call anyone#
The audit goes into Clectiv AI before your carrier, or a new one, hears about it. Then Clectiv AI runs the process and bids it out to the providers that fit, they compete, and you choose the one you want. Call one first and you get a retention offer on the bill you have, not the bill you should have.
Do we switch carriers, renegotiate, or both?#
Bid the cleaned-up line count, and let your current carrier compete with the others. Renegotiate alone and you only learn what one carrier will give you.
- What will you keep? Bid that, not what you have today. The audit sets the number.
- Does coverage hold where your people work? The cheapest plan is worthless if it drops calls in your warehouses.
- Can every account sit on one contract, with one renewal date?
The plan asks the rest, from pooled plans to how travel gets handled.
Most of a carrier switch is paperwork. The numbers are what need planning. Your people keep theirs through porting, and eSIM makes moving each phone faster.
AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile all sell business mobility. Granite also puts lines from several carriers on one bill. We work with all of them in wireless and IoT, and Clectiv AI runs the process for you: start a project.
Skip the learning curve. Clectiv AI runs the process we ran for others in your seat, so you start where they ended up. These providers get the plan straight from it, and you get the best pricing, terms and contract we can.
What does managed mobility add?#
Someone runs the phones, not just the bill. Managed mobility covers the whole life of every device, so your IT team isn't doing it by hand. Write down what you need run with Clectiv AI, and it becomes a line in the same plan.
| Piece | What it does |
|---|---|
| Mobile device management (MDM) | Sets up, secures and wipes every phone from one console. |
| Staging and kitting | Phones arrive set up, labeled and ready to use. |
| Help desk | Your people call someone else when a phone breaks. |
| Lifecycle | Upgrades, replacements, returns and recycling, on a schedule. |
| Expense management | Every invoice audited every month, so the waste doesn't creep back. |
Expense management keeps the bill fixed after you fix it. Lines get added every week. Someone has to keep checking them against people, plans and usage.
Decide what's company-owned and what's BYOD. Who owns the phone decides what you can manage on it, and the plan prices the two groups separately.
Know how fast a broken phone gets replaced. For frontline teams, a day without a phone is a day without work. The plan asks every proposal for that time, in writing.
Tangoe and Granite sell managed mobility and expense management. Those names are a sample of our wireless and IoT providers, and Clectiv AI runs the process with them for you: start a project.
Common questions#
How do we lower our corporate mobile bill?#
Will our people have to change their numbers if we switch carriers?#
What is telecom expense management?#
What does BYOD change?#
Can one provider do staging and management?#
How does Clectiv AI get this done?#
Clectiv AI comes first. Tell it how many lines you have and which carriers they're on. It scopes the project with you and writes your plan: what devices are out there, whether they're company-owned or BYOD, who manages them, and what the rollout looks like.
Then the Clectiv team takes your plan to the carriers and mobility providers that fit, all at once, through our partner network of 620+ providers. They compete bid for bid, the team pushes on terms, and you choose the one that suits you.
Others have already done this. Clectiv AI runs the process we ran for them, so you start where they left off. From there, the providers that fit get the plan directly, for the best pricing, terms and contract we can get.
It's free to you, start to finish, and it runs in days, not months. Everything we cover in wireless and IoT is on the wireless and IoT page.
Connecting devices, not just phones? Read how to buy IoT connectivity at scale.
Sources and method. No prices appear in this guide. Provider names are examples of who sells business mobility and expense management, from Clectiv's provider directory, not a ranking.