In his study entitled, What Businesses Should Negotiate and Expect in Carrier Contracts, Chamberlin said enterprises should establish a set of contract priorities to structure negotiations.

"The enterprise should decide which changes are nice to have, which changes they would strongly like to have, and which changes are 'deal breakers'," he said.

"If there are more than one or two deal breakers, the enterprise should re-evaluate them. Similarly, within each clause, the enterprise should determine what is the best case and what the minimum requirements are."

Gartner vice president and research director, Geoff Johnson, said business often relies on monopoly providers to keep telecoms records and then, without any level of scrutiny, pays invoices.

"But inaccurate and outdated records can favor carriers over enterprises up to two to one," he said.