Investors Voice Doubts About CenturyLink, Qwest Is growing for growing's sake going to be worth it? As we mentioned last week when CenturyLink and Qwest's $23 billion deal was announced -- there's a lot of questions to be asked about a company that's growing so incredibly quickly (CenuturyLink only just merged with Embarq last year), has no wireless division to prop up revenues, and is trying to be a next-gen broadband company using last mile copper. Consumer advocates are always wary of consolidation for consolidation's sake -- but investors also appear to be nervous about regulatory attention, growing too quickly and integration: Wall Street has begun to raise concerns that CenturyTel is growing too aggressively, as it just recently completed another large acquisition of Embarq less than a year ago. CenturyTel is well known for growth through acquisition, but after the completion of the deal, CenturyTel will claim 17 million local landline customers which is 8 times as many as they had at the end of 2008. Clearly, there are concerns about management’s ability to seamlessly integrate yet another acquisition so soon following the Embarq deal. The deal also may raise the attention of regulators, which may explain why Qwest is not trading up to the offered price. Investors of course find themselves asking if CenturyLink can generate enough cash to manage their growing debt, and handle continued landline losses without a wireless play. Consumers are rightly asking themselves if the new company will see a support hit for growing so quickly (ask Comcast about that) and if they'll ever get to see next-gen broadband upgrades.
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 | |  Very Good Points
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|  | MeKuN
join:2004-07-21
Eugene, OR | Re: Very Good Points What would the qwest area have to do with where you live?It shouldn't change a thing. Its more about improvements to areas that need it . | |
| | |  tstolzePremium
join:2003-08-08
O Fallon, MO
kudos:1
 ·CenturyLink
 ·Charter
| Re: Very Good Points said by MeKuN:What would the qwest area have to do with where you live?It shouldn't change a thing. Its more about improvements to areas that need it . Many of us had issues after the Embarq merger, likely due to Centurylink adding the extra traffic on their core network. I am a legacy Centurytel customer, it took a couple weeks to get my connection consistent during the transition.
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Ofallon, Mo Weather
St. Peters, Mo Weather | |
| | | | nonymousPremium
join:2003-09-08
Glendale, AZ Reviews:
 ·Callcentric
| Re: Very Good Points said by tstolze:said by MeKuN:What would the qwest area have to do with where you live?It shouldn't change a thing. Its more about improvements to areas that need it . Many of us had issues after the Embarq merger, likely due to Centurylink adding the extra traffic on their core network. I am a legacy Centurytel customer, it took a couple weeks to get my connection consistent during the transition. Qwest brings their own backbone so things like that should be no big deal. | |
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| | | | I'm not talking solely about the quality of my connection...I'm talking about the quality of my whole experience (tech support, billing, sales, etc.) With a merger, there will be layoffs. | |
| | | | Reviews:
·WOW Internet and..
| Re: Very Good Points Not as many as one would think as far as that goes. You're not going to be able to train a staff the size needed for Qwest in just a few offices. They could keep the 2 operations apart. Qwest could use their current offices (billing, support and such) for those customers, would make sense to have someone in that area to talk on the phones and help the customers than to have someone say in FL talking to those same customers. They don't know anything about that network nor do they know what could happen. Would it cost more? Yes it would but at least the customers would get services and someone knows what they're doing on the phone and in Support.
CenLink would need to deploy a MNVO or buy someone soon though if they plan on moving forward or start building a Wireless network and offloading the Copper. That would be the smart thing to do. Move everything to LTE or WiMax (voice and data). There would be less lines to support and would not have to worry about much actual hardwire to support.
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www.twopugsbrand.com Kosher, Vegan, and Organic Certified Dog and Cat treats/foods and other products! | |
| | | | | | | | | | | Reviews:
·WOW Internet and..
| Re: Very Good Points with that map it looks like they could easily start turning on LTE and by passing the Copper in those areas.
That would be the ticket if all would work. IPTV, VoIP/Digital Phone, HSI. All would work easily one the one network, and not many last mile networks to manage like they do now.
What we need now is a Qwest service area overlayed on that map to show how many landline areas of theirs could be bypassed and turned into LTE.
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www.twopugsbrand.com Kosher, Vegan, and Organic Certified Dog and Cat treats/foods and other products! | |
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| | | | | | Re: Very Good Points-NOT EMBARQ tripled CTL's size and that wasn't even final until July 2009. Massive layoffs at EMBARQ happened immediately after. Training of field techs was horrid and the internal training on CTL's new combined systems was wretched. CTL did bother to validate which systems were most appropriate, they just did a cut and burn. If it was CTL, it stayed. Processes went from electronic data transfer and to manual. Labor is cheap in Monroe and that way they didn't have to worry about systems knowledge transfer or integrating infrastructure. Not only did the CTL cut the EMBARQ legacy staff, it did so without batting an eye. CTL execs could care less about the knowledge of the dual systems. CTLs acquisitions prior to EMBARQ were only a few hundred staff/lines. They had no idea what impact the merger of EMBARQ and now QWEST will do to their upgrades, customer service and headcount. Don't count on field techs being around either. Attrition is the game here. Reduce headcount, have a monopoly in landline areas, and raise profits. The only reason CTL even pays out dividends is because EMBARQ set that up before they were acquired and tripled their value. Now with the acquisition of QWEST think...Monroe is the center of the universe. You should read what the Governor and now Post are bragging about bringing jobs to LA. A CEO who thinks his personal approval on ALL spending is rational. Yeah, all Fortune 500 companies run that way.
As for wireless, EMBARQ used to resell Sprint and guess who QWESTs wireless provider is? Yep, Sprint. However, CTL has no clue how to handle business lines or wireless. Their strategy has always been copper and TV/Phone over copper as a direct competitive model to cable TV. Their forte is in rural landlines. They don't think creatively, they mimic the cable model in rural areas so they haven't had to worry about dropping access lines to wireless...until now. Seriously, they are 10yrs behind telecommunications in practice, process and strategy. Just because you have a big bank account (or not cuz it's a stock swap) doesn't mean they can handle the volume or strategy to survive. | |
| | | | | |  dsldude08Premium,VIP
join:2008-01-03
La Crosse, WI
kudos:2 | Re: Very Good Points-NOT Wow dude, seriously? You are WAY off! Sounds like you are just mad because you no longer work for EQ (according to your title)...
Only a few hundred lines? Try: Verizon, Madison River, former GTE areas, multiple other areas, a lot more than a "few hundred lines" at a time. We're not no AT&T, we started small, acquired small, and are now acquiring big (pretty amazing to me), it's called GROWTH. The only way for a telco to GROW is to buy other telco's. We aren't FairPoint either, that's a joke, they don't know jack about integration nor do they have any history for it either.
CenturyTel has ALWAYS paid dividends, well before Embarq even came into mind.
Not everything has gone the "CenturyTel" way, policies from BOTH companies are looked at and the best is chosen, accordingly, just as with any other merger/acquisition the best system is chosen. Last time I checked, Overland Park still had offices and employee's.
Former Embarq areas had UP TO 7 SYSTEMS for billing, CenturyTel had ONE, so therefore the CenturyTel system is being used. CenturyTel is known for integration and acquisition, WE ARE GOOD AT IT!
Electronic to manual? You're out of your mind!
Labor is cheap in Monroe? You don't know much do you...
Embarq legacy staff was NOT fully cut, I believe one maybe two call centers were closed and of course overhead on management, that is going to happen, regardless. There are many, many more call centers open, and you cannot operate services without plant techs...You really have no idea how this has gone, not a single bit, for one because you do not work there. Get a grip.
The company does have the strategy to survive, why do you think it can pull things like this off? Wireless, yes, of course, that is a growing trend and it's happening, but you know what, not everyone can do wireless or WANTS to, so simply because CenturyLink isn't doing wireless people get all huffy and puffy over it, because "it's the future". Well I'll tell you now, not everybody wants wireless, and wireless sure as hell can't be provided everywhere, and with the data limits and restrictions and CASH COWS these wireless companies have, people will look for alternatives yet again, just as they are now. Hard line services will NEVER cease to exist, you watch.
CenturyTel/CenturyLink hasn't EVEN MENTIONED the possibility of having a data cap unlike ALL other companies, even smaller ones. So......
Shows what you know. | |
| | | | | | | jcremin
join:2009-12-22
Siren, WI
kudos:2 | Re: Very Good Points-NOT I'm not sure how good CenturyTel... Err. CenturyLink is in LaCrosse, but not many miles from you up in Polk and Burnett Counties, they SUCK. Nobody likes the service and it quite often is very slow... So slow that I have switched over a handful of people (I run a small WISP) from the 1.5 meg connections to a measly 512k connection and they've been blown away at how "fast" it is now. Don't even get them started on tech support.
Why am I ranting, well I'm not... the worse this company gets, the better it is for my WISP 
I do feel bad for those who get suckered in by the blatant lies in the advertising and are now stuck in a contract, or those who can't get any other service. | |
| | | | | | | | | Make your assumptions, but just because I'm an ExEQ, doesn't mean I'm not at CTL. I didn't say EQ legacy was fully cut. And, I didn't say there aren't offices in OP. But, I believe there is/was a strategy to just keep those offices around for appearances and eventually (less then 5yrs) drop them as well. Which after a QWEST acquisition would of course make sense.
EQ legacy salaries were cut as much as 33%. Average salary in Monroe is about $10 or more per hour LESS then in OP, KS. If you don't believe me, go look it up for yourself. BLS.gov
Yes, processes went to manual after they took out EDI.
Approval processes went to manual and approval $$ were significantly reduced.
Training was/is horrid.
I said field techs, not plant techs. Yes, there is ALWAYS a plan of attrition and when you are talking about companies with the average service tenure of 20+ years, ANY company would bank on that. No, you can't run a hardlined telephone company without field techs. BUT, you can hope that those 30yr+ folks leave and you hire someone cheaper and increase their service responsibility area can't you?
My comments are regarding integration of OTHER companies BEFORE the EQ integration, not after. You're telling me its the same to integrate 600 employees as it is to 18,000? That's not logical.
Yes, billing systems suck. They were inherited from Sprint. No shocker there. But how much rationalization was done on the other systems?
You aren't responding with anything other then trying to slander my own personal knowledge. Why is your knowledge any more informed?
Strategy of a hardlined company to buy other companies, integrate them into a single nationwide telephone company? Humm, sounds familiar...could be...AT&T already did that was broken apart and now the pieces are getting put back together only with different Mama's. No, not everyone in the country can or will go to cable or wireless due to the economics of buildout, geographical topography, technology and cultural adaption behaviors.
CTL is able to pull of acquisitions for a variety of reasons. Their long term strategy doesn't have to be viable. The buyers/sellers and stock swaps have to make it past approvals. And, while the volume and $$ of those deals are small, approvals are not a large hurdle. Read some of this page re: acquisitions, etc. | |
| | | | | | | | | Well I don't about being employed or an ex employee, but I do know that CentruyLink has screwed up in my area, on my account, at my location in NC ever since the website changed from embarq to centurylink.
Latest problem is download speeds at night. During the day they rock, but at night, my dsl 5meg drops to between 1 and 3 from about 7pm until about 12midnight. Then it is back up to normal.
My latest problem are the employees I have to deal with. They are still only handling NC calls because the conversion has not happened completely there. But they are signing me up for services I didn't ask for and making a note I said OK. Then another employee says they called me and confirmed I wanted the service canceled only to still be charged with a "minimum charge". Perhaps they are doing that because they are worried about losing their jobs when the merger fully happens in NC? Perhaps they feel if they don't lie and sign people up for extra services they will get fired for not preforming?
Who knows...I am currently working with Joey, who is an employee of CenturLink working with my area. I have been messaging him back and forth on DSL Reports. I have only talked to two people that work for CenturyLink, Joey being one of them, that truly seem like they are trying to help. Everyone either lies or act like it is their last day and could care less. Plus onsite techs that go out to fix a problem with static on the lines just to screw up the number so my phone number no longer calls my house but someone elses number does. And then takes off and 5pm without even bothering to see if it is working OK. Then everything is closed at 5pm so I can't get in touch with anyone to fix it until the next day. Then I have to wait for another tech to come out then he spends all day trying to fix what the other guy broke.
I can tell you I have been with this company since it was still Sprint. When it went to Embarq it was not bad, but I can tell you CenturyLink has so far turned into the worst company I have had to deal with in a long long time. Almost to the point of saying screw it and go without home telephone and just use cell phones for everything including Internet. So from the outside looking in, they are horrible... | |
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| | | | | | | Qwest does NOT use Sprint. LMAO. They changed to VZW. | |
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| | | | | | Re: Very Good Points Qwest is being moved out of Denver to somewhere back East. So you are wrong in your "support staff" assumption. Jobs will fall. | |
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| | | Lets just say Centurylink is busy with a Boatload of Technology(hardware) deployments so I am of the opinion they are going for the gusto! | |
|
 Steve BPremium
join:2004-08-02
Seattle, WA | I Also Have To Wonder I'm a Qwest customer that lives in Seattle. I also have to wonder what this will do to current customers on both sides. Gaining more debt load and integration...will service/CS suffer? I can just see them saying..."no upgrades for a while while we get our finances together after all these mergers...". I hope this is scrutinized very well and assurances given to customers on what to expect. | |
| | nonymousPremium
join:2003-09-08
Glendale, AZ Reviews:
·Callcentric
| Re: I Also Have To Wonder said by Steve B:I'm a Qwest customer that lives in Seattle. I also have to wonder what this will do to current customers on both sides. Gaining more debt load and integration...will service/CS suffer? I can just see them saying..."no upgrades for a while while we get our finances together after all these mergers...". I hope this is scrutinized very well and assurances given to customers on what to expect. Qwest is already broke so upgrades are suffering anyways. No change in that.
Seriously who really knows. The outside field techs have already been sliced with voluntary leaving and retirements. The merger has no real overlap in the field so no reason to layoff anymore field techs as they have already been sliced by qwest.
Now back offices will get some ax to be sure. Where and how much is of course to be seen. | |
| | | | | Re: I Also Have To Wonder said by nonymous:~snip~ Now back offices will get some ax to be sure. Where and how much is of course to be seen. Denver | |
| | | | nonymousPremium
join:2003-09-08
Glendale, AZ Reviews:
·Callcentric
| Re: I Also Have To Wonder Sort of why Qwest dropped the lease on their headquarters recently. They knew they where doing something with the company. Thing is there are still a few other places with back office staff and possible overlap. They do need to chose wisely. Just dumping Qwest staff and keeping all of Century link back office would lead to a deficiency in knowledge of Qwest and any systems still in place or in how to merge them into a whole new system if that is a choice. | |
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guppy_fishPremium
join:2003-12-09
Lakeland, FL
kudos:1 | Following the BK model of growth Buy as many company's as you can, then rinse thruogh bankruptcy to shed debt and share holders, come out a very strong company with huge cash flows on the other side
The business model for land lines for the foreseeable future | |
| |  intellerSociopaths always win.
join:2003-12-08
Tulsa, OK | Re: Following the BK model of growth that should be made illegal. | |
| | | Reviews:
·WOW Internet and..
| Re: Following the BK model of growth just as those companies you see on TV offering help to people that owe the IRS. But yet you don't see those being illegal. If you owe the money pay it. But will never happen.
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www.twopugsbrand.com Kosher, Vegan, and Organic Certified Dog and Cat treats/foods and other products! | |
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|  TransmasterDon't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY | said by guppy_fish:Buy as many company's as you can, then rinse thruogh bankruptcy to shed debt and share holders, come out a very strong company with huge cash flows on the other side The business model for land lines for the foreseeable future Bingo!!!!
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I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's.
- Mark Twain in Eruption | |
| | | | said by guppy_fish:Buy as many company's as you can, then rinse through bankruptcy to shed debt and share holders, come out a very strong company with huge cash flows on the other side And ONE of the reasons that happens is that regulators, for political reasons, make companies wanting to merge promise to do things that they know won't work and would weaken the merged company. Promises like no price increases; maintaining union workforces; no shedding of services in unprofitable areas; etc.
Of course the companies involved could REFUSE to accept those conditions and NOT merge. But they have found a LEGAL way to give in to the blackmailing pols & regulators and still achieve their ends anyway - bankruptcy laws. In bankruptcy they can then reconstruct the merged company in the way it should have been approved in the 1st place.
Now the pols & regulators could have shown some guts & integrity by just not approving the merger in the 1st place. But, as usual, they try to have their cake & eat it too. They are trying to keep all their constituents happy knowing full well that the approval of a merger with onerous conditions will result in the bankruptcy tactic in the end. So they are just pulling the wool over the voters eyes by PRETENDING to care about them. I think hypocrisy is the standard operating procedure for all pols.
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Are you happy with your rep in Washington, DC? | |
| | | | | Re: Following the BK model of growth The next time the pro-corp Republicans take over Congress your tune will change. Everyone who's been here any amount of time knows it. | |
| | | | | said by fAcEtIOUs: I think hypocrisy is the standard operating procedure for all pols. Look who's talking. Here you are ranting about onerous "regulations" after 12 years of Republican deregulation has led to an utterly barren broadband industry.
What exactly do you do for a living again? | |
| | | | | | Re: Following the BK model of growth said by sonicmerlin:said by fAcEtIOUs: I think hypocrisy is the standard operating procedure for all pols. Here you are ranting about onerous "regulations" after 12 years of Republican deregulation has led to an utterly barren broadband industry. I think the broadband industry is in good shape. And if we can keep the FCC from screwing it up with over-regulation, it should get even better.
said by sonicmerlin:What exactly do you do for a living again? As I have said MANY times, I am retired(for over 10 yrs now). And just living off of pensions and investments.
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Are you happy with your rep in Washington, DC? | |
| | | | | | | Re: Following the BK model of growth Your in a fantasy land to say the industry is in good shape.
And since you avoided answering the question you knew he was asking, let me ask you bluntly so you can't dance around it:
Who did you work for before retiring?
What are you invested in? | |
| | | | | | | | Re: Following the BK model of growth said by Skippy25:And since you avoided answering the question you knew he was asking, let me ask you bluntly so you can't dance around it: Who did you work for before retiring? What are you invested in? A railroad. And none of your business.
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Are you happy with your rep in Washington, DC? | |
| | | | | | | | | Re: Following the BK model of growth TELCOs! | |
| | | | | | | | | LOL, well none of it is my business but being you are one of the very few that comes here defending the likes of these companies its only fair to ask and know why you do so.
Kind of like it is only fair knowing that think tanks and spokes people are bought and paid for by the very industry they are supposedly defending and supporting under the guise of a "concerned independent entity". They are no better than the shills in a 3 card monte game setup on a street corner. | |
| | | | | | | | | So lets put this in perspective for you. Seeing as you worked for one of the most highly regulated businesses in the US where pension, wage and worker rights have been enshrined in federal law since the late 1800's I find it highly ironic that you who have benefited so heavily from such regulation would propose that is it evil and should be abolished.
By your own arguments Federal worker protections and regulation of the railroads should be abolished, worker pensioned vacated and all benefits for retiree's eliminated permanently because they serve to do nothing more than harm the companies. But I'd be willing to bet that if the federal government relaxed restrictions on the railroads and allowed them to dispose of their retirement obligations you would be up in arms and looking for legal advice and threatening your politicians.
Just remember when you point your fingers at people 4 more are pointing back at you. You have benefited heavily from regulation throughout your career and have one of the best pensions in the US due ONLY to federal regulation of the railroads that forced many of the railroads to lose money and business year over year because of rights granted YOU by congress. To have someone who's sucking on the tit of regulation come in here and argue against it is nothing more than hypocrisy gilded in self righteous endeavor. You might have a leg to stand on if you voluntarily abolish your pension and petition for US railroad regulation to be removed from the federal code. Of course your former coworkers and current employees will probably tar and feather you for it but I sincerely doubt you would do so under any circumstance because it would harm you. On the other hand you are quite willing to sell out everyone else, ever wonder what that says about you? You will answer for it some day, that I have no doubt. | |
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2 edits | Re: Following the BK model of growth So you think by saying I worked for the railroad you know something about me. Well, your assumptions are wrong. You must have me confused with the union members I helped get rid of over the years. 1st of all my pension was a contract for an executive and not mandated by Congress. 2nd, I worked for deregulation of railroads more than once by helping set up a railroad mgt PAC and lobbying Congress. How do you think I came to have such utter contempt for congresscritters? It was due to closeup contact. And thru my work in computers & telecom I helped get almost 100,000 union workers(mostly clerks) laid off at my company over 20 years.
So don't throw the hypocrite label around when you don't know what you are talking about.
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Are you happy with your rep in Washington, DC? | |
| | | | | | | | | | | Re: Following the BK model of growth said by fAcEtIOUs:So you think by saying I worked for the railroad you know something about me. Well, your assumptions are wrong. You must have me confused with the union members I helped get rid of over the years. 1st of all my pension was a contract for an executive and not mandated by Congress. 2nd, I worked for deregulation of railroads more than once by helping set up a railroad mgt PAC and lobbying Congress. How do you think I came to have such utter contempt for congresscritters? It was due to closeup contact. And thru my work in computers & telecom I helped get almost 100,000 union workers(mostly clerks) laid off at my company over 20 years. So don't throw the hypocrite label around when you don't know what you are talking about. If all this is true, I just found someone else to add to my ignore list. #1, HIS pension is ok because it was as a contracted executive, not a Union employee under a contract, so that makes his ok (still hypocrisy). #2, if he is truly the Union buster he claims to be, then he brings no value to this forum, imho. | |
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| | | This deal is structured very differently then what Verizon has been doing. This is truly a merger. No cash or additional debt involved, just stock swaps. CL is looking to Qwest for their backbone and enterprise/government presence. They are already talking about being able to raise Qwest's dividend by 50%, and to deploy IPTV in Qwest's FTTN areas. CT/L also has a relatively good record w/regards to acquisitions.
Here's my question: Will CL become an RBOC, or will Qwest become an Independent? Will CL integrate their related systems into WFA/Tirks? Or will Qwest abandon Telcordia and move to whatever CL uses? | |
| | | | | Re: Following the BK model of growth We had IPTV in areas under qwest which was cheap and awesome at the same time | |
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| | Is anyone suprised? Well, no one can say that they are surprised Qwest is being bought. CenturyQwest has a nice ring to it...The debt is troubling, but if you look at Centuries cost in comparison, you'll see some light at the end of the tunnel. And, it would be nice to see Qwest have a long term plan towards the future instead of constant triage. | |
|  tobyTroy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13
Seattle, WA | Qwest... If you look at the future Qwest had planned, it didn't have to spend much money, just in areas where its not a monopoly, i.e: not much of its footprint. | |
| | | Conversion still isn't done yet Those of us that work in Centurylink know exactly what all this means. We still only have 1 state currently that has been converted to Centurylink and that's Ohio. Every other state is still using either Embarq or CenturyTel services.
The biggest problem we are running into is that what Centurylink says it wants to do and what it's actually doing are two diffrent things.
I expect if this goes through there will be a huge downgrade in support for the DSL service. After the Embarq/CenturyTel merger we lost almost all of our benifits. A lot of us were told we would have to take pay cuts because CenturyTel doesn't pay as much as Embarq did for it's techsupport and if we didn't want to take a pay cut then we would need to resign. And it's just gotten worse as time has gone on. | |
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1 edit | CenturyLink bites off waaaay too much CenturyLink may well have bitten of more than it can chew.
If you look at the past four years of Qwests financial reports you will see that Qwest bugeted ZERO dollars for land line maintenance and upgrade mainly due to the fact that they were loosing several million land line users per year and continue to do so.
Qwest has attemped to offer DSL services in many areas but they too have a 60% disconnect rate within 30 days of activation because of poor land line condition.
CenturyLink is clearly trying to build a portfolio in hopes of selling it off within 5 to 7 years...but this kind of purchase could very well overextend them beyond recovery and sink them before Qwest sinks.
Ultimately this is a stock swap anyhow which in the first day lost CenturyLink 600million dollars in Qwest stock value. | |
|  Simba7I Void Warranties
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT
1 edit | So much for competition.. For some people, there's only a couple alternatives. In MC, there's Qwest and Mid-Rivers. Mid-Rivers charges almost $100/mo for a 10x1 ($84.95/mo + $15/mo for no cable TV), which made my eyes bulge out of their sockets when I seen their pricing plan. I'd hate to see what they charge for a business-class link.
Now Qwest in that area has a much better deal (7x896k). Sure, it's a little slower, but it's about 1/2 to 1/3 of the price of Mid-Rivers. If Qwest disappears there, everyone in that town is f*cked (no other word to describe it). Mid-Rivers will have a complete monopoly there, unless you want to go satellite or run your own fiber.
At least here in Billings, we have Bresnan, Qwest, a handful of WISPs, and several RevA/GSM providers (Verizon, Alltel, Cell One) that you can use. More competition = better prices and better service. Unless the single ISP cares about the area it covers, you're pretty much stuck.
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Bresnan 15M/1M
MyWS[P4HT@3.2GHz,2GB RAM,2x1TB HDDs,Win7]
WifeWS[P4HT@3GHz,2GB RAM,60GB HDD,Win7]
Router[2xP3@1GHz,512MB RAM,18GB HDD,SMC 8432BTA,2xDigital DE504,Compaq NC3131,Intel Pro/1000MT,IBM Gigabit Ethernet-SX,Allied Telesyn AT-2560FX,Gentoo Linux] | |
|  caffeinatorComing soon to a cup near you..Premium
join:2005-01-16
WA, USA
kudos:3
·CenturyLink
| qwest.com tracerouteJust being curious, I did some traces today to see if anything is changing yet, and I noticed this:
--- 04/27/10 19:56:30 Pacific Daylight Time
--- looking up host qwest.com
--- traceroute to qwest.com [155.70.40.251],
30 hops max, 18 byte packets
1 [ 192.168.0.1] shiva.caffzb0x 0 ms
2 [ 66.45.176.66] dsl1.spkn.tierpoint.com 73 ms
3 [ 66.45.176.65] 66-45-176-65.ptr.llix.net 125 ms
4 [ 66.45.179.33] 66-45-179-33.ptr.tierpoint.com 77 ms
5 [ 65.61.96.117] br2-20g-po6.spkn.tierpoint.com 93 ms
6 [ 63.149.216.129] spk-edge-04.inet.qwest.net 61 ms
7 [ 205.171.153.57] spk-core-02.inet.qwest.net 93 ms
8 [ 67.14.24.29] dvr-core-02.inet.qwest.net 109 ms
9 [ 205.171.10.70] dvr-edge-09.inet.qwest.net 77 ms
10 [ 72.166.149.70] 72.166.149.70 77 ms
11 [ 155.70.33.133] 155.70.33.133 120 ms
12 [ 155.70.42.106] 155.70.42.106 68 ms
13 [ 155.70.33.62] ddcdmzstub02.qwest.net 102 ms
14 [ 155.70.40.251] 155.70.40.251 77 ms
--- traceroute statistics for qwest.com
14 packets transmitted, 14 received
round-trip time (ms) min 0, avg 82, max 125
That "dmzstub" bit seems new.
Qwest.net traces seem normal however.
Not much else I've noticed, and my ISP's manager says that it'd be a while until any real changes to infrastructure are likely to happen.
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My 9/11 Tribute..online since 9/14/01
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| ricep5Premium
join:2000-08-07
Jacksonville, FL | Wall Street complaining about growth? Is it not shocking that greedy, short term, growth obsessed Wall Street is now complaining about someone growing too fast?
Perhaps those on the street who got shafted with old Verizon debt by Fairpoint (and soon by Frontier) are getting worried that they will be left holding the bag on Qwest old debt.
Stay tuned as the battle for greed takes place between Wall Street and Telecom execs. | |
| | | | Re: Wall Street complaining about growth? Mergers like this are not really a "short" term gain is it? I mean most of the time stocks drop a bit during mergers for both companies until things level off a bit and the company starts performing as a whole. Now a buy out is a bit different.
Perhaps people (like myself, a CenturyLink Customer former Embarq Customer) is worried things will start getting screwed up like it already has with me and my service with CenturyLink. If you lose too many customers, it is not good for business, look at Sprint in general. A few years ago people couldn't leave Sprint fast enough and their stocks got nailed for it.
CenturyLink is one of the worst companies I have had to deal with in a long long time...I do not even think they are competent enough to fix any of it. I hope I am wrong though but my patience is almost gone... | |
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