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US West/Qwest Merger Gets Federal Thumbs-Up

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the i'll-stop-the-world-and-merge-with-you dept.

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..."

4 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Who cares? by Christopher+Cashell · · Score: 3

    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
  2. UGH! by Seumas · · Score: 3
    When I moved out of my parents' house and into my own apartment, it took more than three weeks for USWEST to get around to putting my first phone line in.

    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.
    ---
    seumas.com

  3. Hmmm... by the+unbeliever · · Score: 3
    Well, coming from the broadband support industry, I have to say... This is bad, mmmm'kay? US West is by far the worst of the ILECs that I've ever dealt with. Even Bell Atlantic has better customer service and support than these folks, and that's saying *a lot*. US West tends to fsck everyone that deals with them over, especially end users and residential customers. I used to like Qwest, but they've sold out.

    - chris
    - chris@unbeliever.netspam
    - i hate capitals
    - aim:arikel6000 / yahoo:blackrose91

  4. This is beautiful by Shoeboy · · Score: 4

    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