| It would be great While it would be nice if VZ or ATT scooped up Qwest, I don't really see it happening in the near future (2-3 years) because of the current state of the economy. In my opinion, Qwest does not have much to offer to those two anyway. Qwest only has a few large markets to tap into, and the rest of their footprint is fairly rural. |
dynodbPremium,VIP
join:2004-04-21
Minneapolis, MN | said by spectra:While it would be nice if VZ or ATT scooped up Qwest, I don't really see it happening in the near future (2-3 years) because of the current state of the economy. In my opinion, Qwest does not have much to offer to those two anyway. Qwest only has a few large markets to tap into, and the rest of their footprint is fairly rural. Qwest does have a lot of sparcely populated territory, but let's not assume that their entire territory is rural.
Phoenix metro- 4 million
Seattle metro- 3 million
Denver metro- 2.5 million
Minneapolis metro- 3 million
Portland metro- 2 million
Tucson metro- 1 million
Salt Lake City metro- 1 million
Throw in Omaha, Eugene, Yuma, Boise and other mid-sized cities and there's more than a few desireable markets there.
Some rural areas are served by ILECs (some were sold off by Qwest), but add up the population of the 14 states in Qwest's territory and you get 40 million people. |
Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA | AT&T is a possibility if the price is to their liking but Verizon would want to cherry pick Arizona, Oregon, Washington and possibly Colorado and leave the other ten states to somebody else. |
| reply to dynodb
Dynodb,
I did not say their entire footprint is rural. I said other than a few large markets, it’s fairly (mostly) rural.
I have always claimed that the Phoenix, Denver, and Minneapolis are Qwest's largest markets. But those are their only real "large" markets. My definition of a “large” market would be an excess of 1-1.5 million in the surrounding metro. I’ve been to Tucson and SLC. They don’t feel like “large” cities because it so spread out, compared to a place like Baltimore (similar population size) or Philly where it’s really dense. FWIW, I grew up in the D.C. metro.
I’m inclined to not include Seattle or Portland as a market that Qwest can have 100% access to because they aren’t the only telco in those cities; VZ services significant portion of subscribers there. I'd say the Seattle area more so than Portland. I believe Omaha is the same, based on the fact that I have seen U-Verse reviews from people there. You probably know more about this than I do.
But unfortunately for Qwest, compared to Verizon and ATT regions, Qwest in general services areas which are low in population density and really just aren’t that big of metro areas. Verizon alone can make a fortune just by servicing the old Bell Atlantic/NYNEX areas. Then tack on Los Angeles/Orange County, Dallas/Fort Worth, Portland, Seattle to their footprint, and then you can really see how many customers they reach in a relatively small area. DSL, FTTH, and FTTN penetration rates are probably much higher because of the density of their respective regions.
In addition, household incomes are on average much higher in the areas where Verizon and ATT services; they can charge more, provide more services, etc.
I guess my point is, at this point in time, Qwest doesn’t seem attractive enough for Verizon or ATT. Those two are already taking on debt already from their own projects, they each have their own shareholders to please, and because of the economy, they aren’t likely to buy a company who isn’t in the greatest of financial health at the moment..
But It may change in the next couple years, who knows? |
