Qwest has announced they have begun rolling out fiber to the home in Lone Tree, Colorado; the first such effort by the company. Qwest says it will be focusing fiber efforts on so called "green field" deployments, or new housing developments.

The Denver Post indicates that while data speeds of up to 40Mbps are possible, the service will start off capped at 1.5mbps (completely defeating the purpose of all that glorious fiber). The deployment is considerably less aggressive than the moves being made by Verizon (fiber) and SBC (VDSL).

Riding that light will also be Qwest Choice TV, an all digital television service featuring more than 200 channels. Qwest has some experience in the IPTV market, offering TV via VDSL to customers in both Colorado and Arizona. They ultimately decided VDSL was too expensive for broader deployment.

Unlike the problems we've seen in some housing developments where customers are locked into one ISP for all of their services, Qwest says that while customers must use Qwest as an ISP, they're free to sign up with other phone or cable providers if available.

"Fiber to the home is for demands of the future: Download music or enjoy streaming video, watch HDTV programming and be ready to take advantage of the applications of tomorrow," pitches Jim Vogel, Qwest's vice president of sales.

If fiber is the future, shouldn't Qwest be looking at broader (brown-field) deployment?