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MSN Buys 500,000 Qwest.Net Customers
SEWilco writes: "MSN is expecting to increase its users by 10% in a deal with Baby Bell Qwest. Although the MSFT press release does not specifically state it, according to Mercury News and Reuters/Yahoo a later conference call confirmed that Qwest.Net will be replaced by MSN service.
MSN said
it will 'strike deals with companies that own their own infrastructure rather than wholesalers'
in a PC World article pointed at by a recent DSL discussion. You can't strike a much bigger deal than this, unless you get all of a Baby Bell's voice customers too." A few readers have written in unhappy that they're about to become MSN customers, too.
I was never very impressed with Qwest.net anyway, but now that it's going to be part of MSN, it's _really_ time to switch ISPs. The part of the press release that scares me is the line about how Qwest and Microsoft share a common vision .
A little more info. Not all DSL customers were sold. It seems they only sold their personal customers not the business customers.
Here is an excerpt from an email I received from Qwest.
Qwest Internet Solutions Technical Support wrote:
Hello,
Thank you for contacting QWEST Internet Services Technical Support.
You are inquiring about MSN and Qwest partnership.
On April 26, 2001, Qwest and Microsoft announced an agreement, which will soon offer the benefits of MSN to Qwest's In-Region (14 state) customers.
Details of this arrangement are still being worked out.
All existing Qwest.net customers will receive e-mail notification about the agreement in approximately 30 to 60 days. Full implementation is not expected for 60-90 days.
Qwest.net Internet Access Analog, DSL Select and DSL Deluxe customers are included in the agreement.
Qwest.net OfficeWorks and OfficeWorks LAN, and DSL Professional customers are not included in the agreement.
Our relationship with MSN will enhance our ability to provide Internet access to our customers.
Thank you,
Qwest Internet Services Technical Support
This isn't the first time Microsoft has bought a competitor and "SLAMMED" users to their MSN service. Anybody who bought a DELL computer in the last year or so with DELLNET ISP option was switched to MSN without recourse this past January. Branding is so important to Microsoft that they wouldn't even let people preserve their "dellnet.com" email addresses. They forced all users to adopt MSN account names.
Everybody I know who was slammed by this switched to other service providers, as they hated their MSN service.
Let the Microsoft bashing begin..
Sometimes I think it would be interesting if Slashdot would post a Microsoft (bashing) story with Microsoft's name omitted ("An Unknown Company" or something less suspicious) initially, let the posts roll in, then reveal the truth and see how quickly opinions change.
I'm guessing that if some large Linux based ISP picked up the entire userbase of another (NT based, perhaps?) ISP it would be declared a "Victory for Linux" etc., etc.
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What bothers me about this is that there's no info from Qwest as to what's happening except for a press release and no info on what's going to change (pricing, policies, etc.) People on the qwest newsgroups have to sit there speculating as to what the wording of the press release means, since no one in the company will answer any customer questions.
Says who? Substantiate your clain, please. .NET is exposing data programadically as XML over the web. Every standard that .NET uses, from HTTP, XML, SOAP, UDDI, ect. is supported by several other companies and in most if not all cases at least one standards body.
IBM is spending $1 billion on Linux and even they are in bed with MS on their Internet service vision.
A speech...
Alright, here's a Qwest.net customer for you.
We've been with them for a year and a half for dial-up. They've been GREAT in being a reliable dial-up ISP (49 out of 50 calls go through, have averaged a 45.6 kbps connection, never a busy signal), and payment's cheap ($15 flat).
We finally decided to go broadband...640k ADSL line, and service has been just fine (aside from no support for Linux with their internal modem). As for support, they suck (not even their managers know what G.Lite is, and it took the head manager to diagnose a problem that a line technician could have fixed in two minutes, or so he said). But the line's just been fine.
But I'm sorry, I'm not going to be dragged around like some schmuk who's forced to go where they drag us. It is completely bogus that they feel that because they have a regional monopoly, they can do crap like this. I'm not a cable fan, and quite frankly, I don't want to have to dish out $220 for a bloody cable modem, but I don't want to be a corporate pawn either (besides, I'm sure the cable company here would love to offer a "anti-Microsoft" deal for about 1,000 DSL customers who don't want to be pulled around in such a way...the regional guys will actually go out of their way to do stuff like that).
Phone companies are not allowed to "buy out customers" and inform them that they have to conform to the new bell. ISPs shouldn't follow suit.
I don't know what city you live in, but apparenlty you think that, like where you probably live, the places Qwest services have broadband "options."
Sorry, but Qwest services the upper-midwest. Do you know what broadband options are up here? Qwest. That's it. If you wanted broadband (and it was a pretty good deal too), you had to go with Qwest. North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado...there aren't any other options for most of this region.
MSN and Qwest are taking advantage of a regional monopoly. Don't get me wrong, this isn't hate mail towards Microsoft...I think that it's absolutely bogus that AOL and Time Warner are trying to do the same crap.
Here's the problem: Big Businesses KNOW that broadband IS the future. The internet is the future, and the faster the internet, the larger business potential. Just like the telco back in the 1930's, businesses ARE TRYING TO MAKE A MONOPOLY out of broadband. That's what wrong. That's what I want stopped.
No, they're not. I work for a medium sized ISP, and we frequently buy smaller ISPs that can't make it on their own. We already have the infrastructure so assimilating them won't cost us as much as staying in business separately would cost them. But the deal is just like a company buying any other company. If you buy something from one company and another company buys them, you call the new company for warranty issues. It's definitely less odd than banks selling peoples' mortgages to each other.
Qwest (the phone company) is currently one of the worlds largest DSL providers. Qwest (in a move that is of questionable legality) use their government regulated monopoly on phone services to push their non-regulated ISP business.
One of the big reasons that customers choose Qwest as an ISP for DSL is that they are told, either explicitly, or implicitly, by sales people, that this combinations of services is neccesary (which of course it is not).
With Qwest.net soon being part of MSN, it will lose one of its big selling points for DSL.
Also, DSL customers who were Qwest ISP customers will have to go back to making twice as many phone calls to get their DSL installed...both to Qwest to get the hardware installed, and to MSN to get the ISP side. In other words, Qwest is losing one of its big selling point (actually maybe the only one) - the ease of use from "bundled" services.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
How can a company buy customers? It's a strange world we're living in...
Qwest's customers who do not wish to be MSN's customers should demand full refund of the equipment and/or remainder of lease contract, or a no-cost (to the user) transfer to another provider.
MSN should learn how to obtain and maintain a clientelle of their own and not resort to buying them off the market, like some comodity.
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Your second comment about the majority of conformist sheep blindly using MS. You are correct, my friend. You are correct.
The same people just recently became able to comprehend how to use a computer. They have yet to form opinions about whether MS is a good choice or not. Most of them don't even know that MS is a choice or what exactly an operating system is.
You should have faith. People will learn. Enough of them will eventually jump off the MS ship to either turn Linux into a viable desktop OS or to force MS to compete and MS will turn Windows into a viable desktop OS. Neither of which has yet happened.Keeping
Never mind, you're coming with us.
"Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental." -Slashdot
I don't think takeover by MSN is anywhere near as scary as being taken over by AOL. MSN gives clean IP dialtone, AOL locks you into their own private prison and bombards you with pop up ads. There may be an MSN for morons to compete with AOL these days, but at least you get the choice.
What I am worried about is if my AT&T cable modem goes AOL. I can't get DSL at the moment in my neighbourhood - otherwise I would have hooked that up and got a static IP address. I guess that if I get AOL'ed I will simply have to pay for a T1 and see if I can rent my basement space out to folk who want to co-loc.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I wonder how this will affect Qwest overall. For those that don't know the story about Qwest, if I'm not mistaken, the company was working with a railraod company, and laying fiber alongside the tracks of the railroad, when the internet was in its infancy stage.
;\
Anyways one thing I know is Qwest owns a hell of a lot of dark fiber, and I know MS would love to get their hands on some of it for their MS.NET world. I wonder if Qwest unloaded because they were losing money, or could this be the staging for a future rival to AOL-TW. Qwest is pumping out about 15+ billion $ so I can't see them needing money that bad now.
3 days till launch
360 degrees of Karma