Think of an essential utility service apart from hardware – like water, electricity, gas and so on. The costs don’t come down each year, are we right?

But telecoms is different – or rather shouldn’t be, argues a chap called Ben Mendoza, CEO of a telecom services firm called MDSL. He set us and by implication the CIO readers of CBR a puzzle recently: Have your organisation’s telecoms costs reduced significantly year on year in line with this ongoing reduction in telecoms costs?

The answer is probably not – and the reason is that although it gets cheaper call by call, text by text, we use more and more of it each year. In fact, he claims, the rate at which usage is rising outstrips the effect of falling prices by a significant amount, quoting third party research by ABI research that predicts there will be more than 7 trillion SMS messages sent in 2011, all presumably costing less than they did last year on average.

Yet chances are your business telecoms bill probably went up this year? Why?

Mendoza argues that it can’t just be because telecoms is an extremely dynamic market where new technologies spring up almost every day. In fact, it’s because of poor commercial management. How come? If you are in a market where prices have a historic downward trend, then locking yourself into a predictable, 5-year fixed term contract is no good (in contrast to doing the same, perversely, for most other utilities, which are shooting up).

Mendoza – and others who argue that tariff management is the key to mental and fiscal health – say that a CIO or Telecoms Manager should sift through the mass of call and logging data and work out what is actually being used – not what the best ‘call plan’ is being offered.

"The trick is to turn that data into information, that information into knowledge and that knowledge into actionable insight. Then you are ready to sit at the negotiating table. Armed with the pertinent insights to our historical usage and likely future requirements, you can sit across the table from the supplier’s sales representative and negotiate the charging plans," he told CBR.

What might you pick up on in such a negotiation? Look for a start at "pooled" minutes or data "bundles," or the price of a roaming call on a weekday evening: there are actually thousands of data points that can be negotiated.

Think you’re out of the woods? Alas, no. For most suppliers will actually then say your real usage and needs is superseded by their latest all-in calling plan, and the mystification process resumes. And (you knew this bit was coming – deal with it) it’s only companies that have specialist (i.e. proprietary IP, from firms like his and others) Telecoms Expense Management (TEM) tools that a firm, especially at the SME stage, can fight back.

"According to leading independent analysts" (he didn’t name any) "most corporate telecom bills are in error and can overcharge by as much as 10%," he claims. As a result, "particularly when companies everywhere are being asked to take a long, hard look at their cost-base and achieve reductions wherever practicable," it’s time to look at things like TEM – or at least some kind of formal system for fully analysing your bill and tell you what you should not be paying for, while pointing you clearly in the direction of regular across-the-board savings.

I think there is some science in this and have heard something similar from other sources. I think there is enough to suggest that smaller firms need help with this stuff – and that looking for the best ‘bundle’ is not in fact the best way to get your business the best telco deal.

Worth investigating. And what’s to lose, after all?