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US West/Qwest Merger Gets Federal Thumbs-Up
cnoe writes On Monday, federal regulators said Qwest Communications International Inc. and U S West Inc. have complied with the necessary conditions to complete their proposed $36 billion merger. Kind of interesting considering the recent Slashdot piece Qwest Achieves 100-Mile IP Round-Trip At 40Gb/sec.
Here's a short press release with the basics from Excite. I hope Qwest gets to take the reins after this merger, US West has been the pinnacle of all evil for way too long..."
I did a little searching (ok, very little) about the merger, and found this interesting article from Yahoo.
Apparently AT&T agreed to drop it's opposition to the merger between US West and Quest in exchange for the two companies dropping their request to AT&T's cable systems.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
Anyway, that wasn't the first thing we had to say about U S WEST. Here's a sampling:
- 10/1/1999 McLeodUSA Asks FCC to Protect Consumers and Ensure Competition in US West - Qwest Merger
- 12/3/1999 McLeodUSA Documents US West 'Bad Faith' and Vigorously Opposes Approval For Long-Distance Service
- 03/14/2000 McLeodUSA Files Formal Complaint With Colorado PUC Regarding 'Discriminatory Practices' by US West
- 04/26/2000 McLeodUSA Resolves Key Business Points with U S WEST
Note that I don't speak for McLeodUSA. They don't pay me enough for that job.Now, as to my personal experiences with U S WORST: The first time I tried to get a line from them, it took over two months! They claimed for most of that time that my address didn't exist. Even though I was very obviously living there and there was a network interface right in back. They missed the first install date, and after insisting on the phone with them for weeks that my address really did exist, they finally dispatched a truck and I got a phone line.
Of course, the line quality was for shit. I had to call for repair not a day afterward because of noise and static on the line. Turns out the installer had just strung the line out across the ground down to the street, and well, you can imagine what happened.
These days I am completely free of U S WORST (even though I live smack in the middle of their territory!) and loving it. My present employer, from whom I also get phone, cable TV and cable Internet service, installed everything on time. Everything works exactly like it's supposed to. And anytime I have a problem, I know exactly who to call and what their phone number is. And NEVER have to wait on hold, or deal with pressing 1 for aggravation or 2 for frustration. (That's right, we have no voice menu system! And never will, either!)
And no, they don't pay me to speak for them. My opinions are my own. (Though most everyone else in this company can't stand U S WORST either.)
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How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
This misses the point.
Networks on the internet have nothing to do with hardware. really. it's all about peering. the network that our service was switched to doesn't have NAP peering, doesn't have good european peering, doesn't have squat. it's not a real network on a par with UUnet. It's more of a verio sort of a network (not really what we signed up for).
Well, I'm going to guess that quite a lot of people care. US West is the primary local phone carrier (basically, the phone monopoly) for 14 states in the Central and Northwestern United States. They also provide Internet access through their USWest.net service, and recently started offering DSL.
If you're lucky enough to live in one of them, they also have a wholly owned subsidiary known as US West TeleChoice which offers cable television and cable modems (TeleChoice Online).
While they do have many problems, I personally don't think of them as quite the worst phone company around. There are many who are in fact much worse (BellSouth comes to mind).
Either way, this is a *very* big thing, because US West and Qwest aren't just merging. US West is being bought by Qwest. This will have a major impact on a whole lot of people, both for their local phone service, and more.
I will admit that I'm slightly biased here, as I do cable modem installations for US West TeleChoice Online. However, I'm also very excited here. You see, TeleChoice has been rejoicing over this buy-out for a while now. Qwest is not a phone company, their an Internet service oriented company. Therefore, this buying of US West is primarily to give them access to US West's phone subscriber base to start a major roll out of High Speed Internet Access.
That's right, Qwest is most likely going to be pumping out some major advances in high speed access. I expect we'll be seeing VDSL as soon as it is technically feasible (as in Very Soon (tm)).
I saw a few posts, along with the mention at the top where the story is posted, about who will be in control of the new company. Well, ease your fears, the control goes to Qwest. Again, this merger is Qwest buying US West, so they will be primarily in control. In fact, if you go to US West's homepage (www.uswest.com) you'll see that it's no longer US West's homepage. Instead, you are now looking at Qwest's homepage!
Topher
Remember, monopolies like this are weak, because I could rent out the vacant shop across the street and start my own operation with little capital.
Concentrated power in the Telco/Internet sectors are much scarier, because it takes a hell of alot of resources to compete in selling service to the backbones when Sprint/Worldcom/ATT have a stranglehold. This is also why the ATT monopoly had to be broken.
What happened afterwards was the "baby bells" had regional monopolies. Southwestern Bell, now SBC grew under this protection to become a behemoth, and now enjoys a spot on the DJIA. Only recently have the local lines been opened up to competition.
This brings up an interesting point: who should really control these lines? It only seems fair that the telco should have full control over local lines, since they put them there, but there comes the fact that the consumer is utterly vulnerable should the telco turn Evil.
Anyway, I think we would all be alot better off if, in the near future, we get a communications services market where the buyer can choose from ten or fifteen top-tier companies for backbone services. If this precipitates, then not only would competition keep prices down, but it would make sure you aren't forced into an abusive EULA situation.
I work at uswest, and this is not a merger.
We are not allowed to wear anything with the uswest logo on it anymore, if we do we get sent home!
They are going to have Qwest people at the front door to welcome us to the new company.
They have had a city permit to remove all the uswest signs from the buildings downtown within 24hours of the "merger".
They have tried to screw the employees by pushing this merger through as fast as possible so they don't have to pay dividends.
They have already laid people off, I guess there are to many people on the job.....
Don't be fooled, this is not a merger, its a takeover.....
My personal experience with US West was at an airport -- I think it was Phoenix, AZ, but I'm not sure. I asked the airline staff how to get directory assistance. They immediately went on to explain to me how the f****** airport authority was driving them mad, because the f******* telco that operated the phones didn't get phonebooks from US West, so the f****** airport authority really should get off their butts and switch back to US West for the payphones. Somehow, this story struck a note with me :-)
Anyway, for the promised diatribe: Probably too far if you have something along the line of 42 AWG cable Actually, the best leased line I ever had was an even heavier gauge than that. It's the cable the railroad company runs along the tracks to actuate the railroad points. Their tech support was fabulous: "Oh, you're running PTT approved modems? Just massacre them and set them to -14 dB. Our lines will handle it with grace" -- and they did. Oh well, this was in the days 19200 bps was fast.
Oh, but I could (and did) get an unloaded "alarm" circuit from them between the same two locations and pound 384kbps of SDSL through it. Snicker. This was a service our PTT offered as well, but only if you spoke the magic words. The magic words were "termination revenue". Ahhh, those were the days.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
I live in Medford Oregon( I'm a statistical anomaly, I'm not a hillbilly =P ). US West STILL continues to shrug off the people that want DSL here(yeah, both of us). This probably won't do any good for us. Luckily, I'm moving to Seattle, probably this month. 768k SDSL, here I come!
BTW, a few days ago there was a fire at the Central Office here. That's right, a fire at the CENTRAL OFFICE. Almost completely knocked out phone service to the entire area, as this is the ONLY CO in many miles. Reportedly it took out the main power supply, lots of lines, and a few routers. NOT good for their rep.
It took them more than three months to put my second line in, for data.
Further, they have one of the worst statistical reputations for customer service in the entire industry. So much so that the public utilities commission in Oregon decided to fine them as long as they continued to fail miserably at achieving customers service levels and installation/repair levels. The PUC has threatened USWEST so many times, that it's become a routine front-page story and often is the topic of radio talk-shows local to the area.
I am absolutely amazed that the PUC wasn't able to step in and step this merger. When a company performs as poorly as USWEST and treats the government and the citizens with such careless disregard, how can they be rewarded with an affirmitive merger? This is rediculous.
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seumas.com
One very important thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet: as a result of the purchase of USW, Qwest is spinning off their entire Internet services division covering the 14-state US West region. I know because we were a Qwest subscriber and last week they unceremoniously moved us from Qwest's AS number to the old Colorado Supernet AS number (Qwest bought colorado supernet about 3 years ago).
This is bad for a bunch of us for a bunch of reasons. It means that Qwest's main IP network (everything outside of the 14-state territory) will be decent and only slightly diminished. The IP network that gets spun off, however, sucks. It is a rinky little regional network (and certainly not the network we signed up for).
Just as a side note: they are also spinning off their voice long distance business. I got a letter a few weeks ago from a no-name called 'Touch America' or something like that telling me that they were my new LD provider. Needless to say, I switched to someone who would give me something free to switch.
Has anyone else experienced problems with these spinn-offs yet? Are there other services spinning off that I haven't mentioned here?
You're gonna love Joe Nacchio, who is a fast-talking dealmaker who is even more greedy than Trujillo.
I work right across the street from the US West -- er Qwest -- Small Business Center here in downtown Portland, which services the entire territory (it used to be Pacific Northwest Bell headquarters back in the days of old).
I am a customer and DSL user, and the acquisition by Qwest is of grave concern because US West did an excellent job blocking implementation of the parts of the 1996 Telecom Act that it didn't like. My favorite indication of that was the photo of the empty colo cage in Seattle that Data Communications published at some point in 1998.
The consolidation in telecom is being driven by absolutely ruthless operators like Nacchio who make Bill Gates look like a kid at a lemonade stand as far as how they do business. Nacchio rolled Trujillo, a noted shark in the executive suites who was loathed by the line-level reps, service people and engineers. What direction can Qwest service possibly take but downward as it extends its empire and increasingly escapes the clutches of state and federal regulation?
Sorry, I'm very bitter about this. We will live to regret the day that the Telecom Act passed, and it won't be long.
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Bill Gates Is My Evil Twin.
- chris
- chris@unbeliever.netspam
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- aim:arikel6000 / yahoo:blackrose91
We can now get "we're sorry, dsl won't be in your area for X months" messages at a rate of 40Gb/s.
Qwest's broadband technology should let them enter a whole new world of high speed customer disservice. Imagine being told "I'm sorry I can't help you." in seconds rather than having to wait on hold for hours.
Myself and most people I know have had some delightful experiences with USWEST -can you tell?
--Shoeboy