Qwest CEO Ed Mueller offered a little more detail on the company's "next generation" upgrade plans this morning in a conference call with analysts. According to Mueller, the company will spend $1.8 billion in 2008 on capital expenditures, $200 million more than previous predictions. The company will be spending $300 million over the next two years to bring 20Mbps VDSL to around 1.5 million customers.

Muellers says that $70-100 million will be spent on FTTN this year and another $200 million next year. The company hopes to see a FTTN/VDSL penetration rate of 40% by 2010, and the upgrades are going to cost the company around $175 per home. The CEO stated that they were focusing on portions of around twenty un-mentioned Qwest markets, but again failed to offer specifics.

Leaked documents we obtained last summer stated Denver, Phoenix and Colorado Springs will be the first launch markets for the (according to insiders) repeatedly delayed project. Markets soon to follow include Seattle, Minneapolis, Albuquerque, Portland, Salt Lake City and Des Moines. Those documents stated that like AT&T, Qwest would offer current-gen speeds at first over VDSL (1.5-7Mbps).

The business case is super conservative. -Qwest CEO Ed Mueller

While the company has signed some TV franchise agreements, Muller continued to insist they wouldn't be focusing on IPTV -- and would instead be continuing their relationship with DirecTV. As it stands, the company sees getting into the TV business as too risky of a proposition.

Compare Qwest's $300 million plan to the plans of the other baby bells. AT&T plans to spend $6.5 billion for U-Verse VDSL deployment over the next few years, while Verizon has earmarked $23 billion for FiOS FTTH service over the next five.

"The business case is super conservative," Mueller told call attendees. The Qwest boss sees the deployment as a "solid foundation" from which they'll move forward. "We will finish it in 2008 and decide where we want to be with it."