Line Suspend With vs. Without Billing: Stop Paying for "Parking Spots"

Most U.S. carriers including AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless let you suspend a line with billing (you keep paying a reduced or even the full charge) or suspend without billing (you stop paying, but usually for a limited time).

What I see over and over: companies put lines on suspend with billing, leave them there for months, sometimes years and quietly keep paying. At that point you have to ask: are we preserving value, or just paying rent on a parking spot nobody uses?

The root cause isn't technology. It's lack of mobility cost discipline:

• a device is lost/stolen,

• an employee leaves,

• HR is holding the number,

• security/MDM is sorting something out...so someone says "just suspend it," and nobody ever comes back to disconnect it. Meanwhile, the carrier happily invoices you every month.

Here's the key idea: suspend with billing is an administrative tool, not a cost-saving tool. You use it when you specifically want to keep something alive:

1. Preserve the number/plan/discounts. You don't want to lose a good legacy plan or a hard-won discount, so your park the line for a short time.

2. Avoid reactivation headaches. Some organizations don't want to reprovision, rehome, or reassign a number. Suspending for a cycle buys them line.

3. Short-term risk/control. You need to stop usage now (fraud, roaming spike, investigation) but don't want to change the plan yet.

4. Contract or device installments are still running. You can't just kill the line because you'd break commitments, promos, or EIP timing.

These are good reasons but they are temporary reasons. Not 18-month reasons.

When to Prefer "Suspend Without Billing"

If a line shows no usage for multiple months, the default should be:

1. check contract/EIP/commitment first,

2. if safe, suspend without billing or plan to disconnect,

3. track when the no-bill window expires (carriers often force it back to active),

4. then either disconnect or move it to another short-term status.

Some companies do this with an annual waiver strategy. Use the carrier's allowed "no-charge suspend" period, then disconnect after the waiver so they don't pay anything.

When IT Managers Should Track

To make this work, IT needs two views at all times:

1. Commitment coverage (pools, minimum revenue, EIPs). Don't drop so many lines that you miss the commit and end up paying it back in penalties.

2. Dormant line (no data, no voice, no messaging for 60-90 days). These should auto-enter a "review → suspend without billing → schedule disconnect" workflows.

If you only do # 1 (commitments) and ignore # 2 (dormant lines), you end up with what I keep seeing: dozens or hundreds of lines suspended with billing, generating monthly charges, and delivering zero business values.

Bottom line

• Suspend with billing → short term, to preserve value.

• Suspend without billing/disconnect → long term, to save money.

• What's killing budget → lines parked with billing for months because nobody closed the loop.

I've seen too many invoices where companies were literally paying to forget. Don't let "temporary" suspensions become permanent spending.