If the accounting isnt fraudulent (ie truly cooked, and I assume any intentional overbilling is fraud regardless of where the figures go) then surely overbilling will have the effect of reducing profit. .. which is why I think people (especially US altho it seems to be coming more the normal in other markets) use EBITDA as it smooths out the bumps even tho the bumps are still there! The other nice thing in the telecoms world about EBITDA is the 'D' which seems to work quite well at hiding losses caused by falling fibre/bandwidth prices! Steve On Sat, 6 Jul 2002, Jeff Mcadams wrote:
Also sprach Dan Hollis
On Fri, 5 Jul 2002, Chris Beggy wrote:
Wcom's overbilling will be investigated:
Is there a single wcom customer on nanog that *hasn't* been overbilled?
I don't think we've done business with *any* telco that hasn't overbilled us, both LECs (BellSouth, GTE/Verizon, Cincinnati Bell, ICG, Adelphia), and l/d (wcom, T, MCI, probably others that I'm forgetting about).
I've had the same thoughts as another poster that its a ploy to increase "revenues" (even if they're written off later)...and I actually don't say that thinking it a joke, I really do seriously think that they do that to some degree.