t cost? What is the volume and total cost of use/ownership? Is the cost fixed or variable, and if it's variable what is/are the variable parameters? Once the answers are placed into a spreadsheet and understood, consider them in light of other questions such as: What business are we in, or what's the mission of our enter- prise? What is each department's role in that mission? What is the responsibility of each head on the payroll? How does their use, or lack thereof, impact communications cost? How can current communications unit cost be reduced? How will any considered change impact the ability to deal with suppliers and customers? What are the potential risks and rewards from any proposed change? 11 MANAGING COST OF EQUIPMENT FACILITIES AND SERVICES Satisfactorily addressing the above landscape puts you in a position to consider and undertake several next steps. These include: Validate monthly billing (i.e., make sure specific items of equip- ment, facilities, and services being billed match what is actually in use or in accordance with an appropriate service agreement, contract, order, tariff filing, or whatever caused the billing). Make a list of all circuits and facilities terminated in the tele- phone room. This is a room in each building where telephone company wiring enters the building from the outside. Sometimes there is more than one such room in a single building. More often, one room in a single building serves multiple nearby buildings on the same or directly related owner's property. Prepare the list SO it shows unused capacity. For example, in the case of copper cable, the tele- phone company typically installs what it calls an entrance facility, which is a terminal block on the wall with every single pair of wires in the cable connected to the terminal block. The other end of the cable is terminated on a block in a cabinet, or spliced into a larger cable connecting it to the nearest wire center or controlled environ- mental vault. In the case of fiber entrance facilities, there will be light wave