Qwest: 10-15Mbps 'Plenty for Foreseeable Future' The Rocky Mountain News explores Qwest's next-gen broadband plan, which is to cherry pick developments and occasionally deploy VDSL where it makes financial sense. The company recently told Portland not to build a $470 million fiber network because they would do so when they got around to it. An executive tells the paper that the company should have 10-15Mbps VDSL deployed by 2007, "which he believes is plenty for the foreseeable future."
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 | |  Wow
*Two Thumbs Up | |
|  |  MarkyDPremium
join:2002-08-20
Oklahoma City, OK | Re: Wow said by superht1:Holy cows!!! That's is plenty fast for the next decade!!! *Two Thumbs Up I hope you are kidding.
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| | | | | Re: Wow said by MarkyD:said by superht1:Holy cows!!! That's is plenty fast for the next decade!!! *Two Thumbs Up I hope you are kidding. No joke!!! For those stuck on copper line, this is as good as it can get. Would you rather have 5.0-7.0/512-896 forever?
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| | | | | | Re: Wow said by superht1:said by MarkyD:said by superht1:Holy cows!!! That's is plenty fast for the next decade!!! *Two Thumbs Up I hope you are kidding. No joke!!! For those stuck on copper line, this is as good as it can get. Would you rather have 5.0-7.0/512-896 forever? I think you are forgetting that those stuck on copper probably will "have 5.0-7.0/512-896 forever".
"Qwest's next-gen broadband plan is to cherry pick developments and occasionally deploy VDSL where it makes financial sense."
Translation: We will be deploying VDSL to 1% of our territory over the next decade.
I won't be holding my breath for this.
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All I ever wanted to do was play my video games. | |
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| | bmn? ? ?Premium,ExMod 2003-06
join:2001-03-15
hiatus | said by MarkyD:said by superht1:Holy cows!!! That's is plenty fast for the next decade!!! *Two Thumbs Up I hope you are kidding. Keep in mind, they are talking about for MOST people... Right now, the majority of people are using their broadband to do what they did on dialup and haven't really started using broadband apps.
Now, if they are talking total bandwidth to the house, where that 10-15Mbps is shared between voice, video and data, then I'd be skeptical like you. There's no way you can deliver good quality HD streams with that amount of bandwidth, especially if little Johnnie or Jane is on Kazaa downloading music.
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Too logical to be a conservative... Too practical to be a liberal... Too realistic to be a Libertarian. | |
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| | | Well tbh, thats not exectly something to celebrate. I live in Newcastle, UK - and have had 10MBPS broadband in my home for around 4months now...by 2007 I see the UK easilly running at around 20mbps.
Studsy | |
| | | | | Re: Wow ur lucky enough to have cable but soon with docsis 3.0 you will see a BIG boos in speeds i mean big up to 100mbps possible
NTL are starting to trial that and blueyounger which is the ISP you are with will release it at the same time since they are the same company now
but dsl is generally good in the uk also with LLU
qwest dont have a clue on the future that is all i can say | |
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| hyperonPremium
join:2006-02-04
Bastrop, TX | said by superht1:Holy cows!!! That's is plenty fast for the next decade!!! *Two Thumbs Up I hope your comment is a sarcasm?
Today 10 mbps is acceptable but I think it will be obscured within the next year not to mention the 'next decade'
10-15 mbps doesn't impress me. Portland should not pay attention to underachievers they should have gone ahead with the fiber optic network  | |
| |  KompressorPremium
join:2002-02-12
Huntington Beach, CA | If 10-15Mbps is all we need, then give us 100Mbps and we'll only use 10-15Mbps of it. | |
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 jarablueAlways be true to yourself
join:2001-06-11
Boxborough, MA | pshaw What a joke.Qwest here is a dollar, go buy yourself a clue. | |
| |  AngeloThe Network GuyPremium
join:2002-06-18 | Re: pshaw wow so late into the game we had fibre layed around here for the past 5 - 6 years they are just starting to activate it now | |
| | AJ023
join:2001-12-25
Forest Hills, NY | Some areas have shit infrastructure and no fiber. Here we have fiber BUT shitty company.
When will providers get it right? Top notch company with Fiber! | |
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 ThrowDemsOutIf you can't convince 'em, confuse 'emPremium
join:2002-03-03
Mullica Hill, NJ
kudos:4 |  Qwest between a rock and a hard place
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| |  sporkmedrop the crantini and move it, sisterPremium,MVM
join:2000-07-01
Morristown, NJ | Re: Qwest between a rock and a hard place said by ThrowDemsOut:Competition is putting current Qwest executives in a no-win situation. If they look long term and invest in FTTH aggressively to meet competition [snip] What competition? Verizon isn't going to come into Qwest territory and overbuilding. I'll bet that the cable companies in Qwest territory are not upping to Optimum Online speeds anytime soon. Why bother?
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Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity | |
| | |  KoolMoeAw ManPremium
join:2001-02-14
Annapolis, MD | Re: Qwest between a rock and a hard place I'd imagine muni competition, like the UTOPIA project, are Qwest's biggest concerns...and I dunno about the cable companies in the vast areas Qwest serves. Also consider the population density in their service area makes it much harder to get the ROI they need to keep investors happy.
They do need to move a little more aggressively, I think, though. Perhaps it would be wise for them to open up what fiber they do have to service providers, like Utopia has? I dunno...
KM
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| | | |  calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA
 ·Comcast Formerl..
| Re: Qwest between a rock and a hard place Qwest's dilemma is pretty simple.
If they really want to compete with cable, they'll have to have big capacity into the house. They may think that 15-20 Mbps will do it, but it may not, depending on viewing habits, success of HDTV, and other factors. But we're looking at significant bucks for either level of video-capable speed.
In any event, the most that they can reasonably hope for would be to get about half of the video market--cable will fight to keep as many video customers as it can.
Nobody on Wall Street following telcos thinks "risk" of any type is a good idea--especially when the best you can hope to get is half of somebody else's business. Nobody following telcos on Wall Street sees the potential of true, full video on demand, either.
The result is that even if Qwest frees itself from a "Bellhead" mentality, it still has to deal with stock analysts thinking in that manner.
A dilemma, yes--but no tears shed here.
calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies! | |
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| | fiberguyMy views are my own.Premium
join:2005-05-20
kudos:3 | You are kidding, right?
Why is Verizon the measurement of everything broadband? VZ may be deploying Fiber in many areas, but the lay is still very small. It looks like a large deployment because they are pickign areas in various cities and it makes it look like a nationwide roll out - but the bottom line is that VZ is still decades away from coming close to a systemwide deploy.
Further, competition? Try Comcast. Comcast is a serious threat to Qwest in the areas it serves. I can attest to that in the Twin Cities area as CC has taken about 145,000 phone lines from Qwest and with CDV they will take more.
Comcast will be launching DOCSIS 3.0 nationwide as it becomes available - this is not a guess, this is for sure. Comcast has been pushing for the 3.0 platform and has plans to lauch it. Unlike 2.0, which wasn't much worth investing in,3.0 is talked about by corporate all the time.
Want your competition? There it is.
Now, on the Qwest side, they are very correct that 10.0 is going to be enough for the close future. Why? Well, cable WILL be the more expensive choice as they believe it's all about value for the dollar. (reserve your comments if they are immature, thoughtless, or just bashing comments) Cable is pushing to give value for the money, not number of channels for a price. I tend to agree that there is a difference. Some people may experience issues with their cable (so do phone and sat customers, just read these forums) but cable does have a better product at this time and looks like they will in the future not to mention they roll them out much faster than phone.
HOWEVER - the reason that 10mbps will work for Qwest is simple - they will be going after the market that wants a a lower price, lower level of service to fit thier budget.
Cable wants to build the service of the future, phone wants to simply serve the "needs" of their customer base. To think that everyone wants or needs 200mbps up and down is foolish, or, simply living and thinking in your own world. EVEN with HD TV, and other advance services, NOT EVERYONE NEEDS OR WANTS THEM! There are many levels of needs out there - cable will serve most of them and phone will grab the rest.
Example - over New Years Eve, two nightlubs across the street from each other. One sold a huge street party package, grand dinner buffet with real nice food and other entertainment for a cover of $50.00. Normal cover is $10. That club usually has 600 people inside a given weekend night. NYE, they saw about 275. The club across the street, a little smaller, usually has no cover or a $3.00 cover and holds about 200 people. NYE they USED to sell an event for $20 but this year decided to sell a cover at $5 and really offer nothing more than a place to go a drink, watch musioc videos and creat their own party. This year, this bar was so packed and the line was out the door and they couldn't take everyone while the bigger club charing more had less - as usual. The smaller bar had net more moeny this year over last becuase they simply trimmed down their offering, offered the low price basic package for less than the competitor and they attracted a larger crowd.
Some people here have this fantasy that somehow all prividers are going to jack up their speeds and offerings and drop the price to near nothing in order to "survive" when the truth is, there is no need for everyone to offer the turbo charged service for everyone. I think they are realizing that there is still a very large market for those subscribers looking for less of a service for less of a price.
The moral? Yes, 10 *is* enough for Qwest. | |
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| | | said by ThrowDemsOut:Competition is putting current Qwest executives in a no-win situation. If they look long term and invest in FTTH aggressively to meet competition, then the Wall St investment analysts will recommend their investors pull money out of their company and invest it elsewhere. And if that happens, the FTTH project slows down or stops and the executives lose their jobs. So, the only thing they can do is go slow, but not too slow, and keep trying to put off their biggest customers until they have the money to invest in new infrastructure. what is FTTH? | |
| | |  braynesPremium
join:2005-03-14
Waterville, ME | Re: Qwest between a rock and a hard place Fiber to the house
Bruce | |
| | |  jbgroup1Non ConformistPremium
join:2000-05-04
Dayton, MD
 ·Verizon FiOS
| You may also see FTTP which is Fibre To The Premises which means the same thing. FTTx where x is some letter in the acronym that stands for Fibre To The x.
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| | |  SteveI know your IP addressConsultant
join:2001-03-10
Yorba Linda, CA
kudos:5 | What is Google? | |
| | | | fiberguyMy views are my own.Premium
join:2005-05-20
kudos:3 | Re: Qwest between a rock and a hard place You are correct, and now you have control of the board. | |
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| | | "Competition is putting current Qwest executives in a no-win situation" and "and the executives lose their jobs. So, the only thing they can do is go slow"
So, the executives are NOT acting in the best interests of the shareholders, the executives are acting to save their own jobs! Who'd a thought!.
If that's the case, then by all definitions of capitalism, Qwest should fail then! I mean, no government subsidies, no special laws, just capitalism, pure and simple. If Quest no longer makes financial sense, then it fails. The shareholders value drops to ZERO. Oh well, they took the risk, too bad they lose all their money. The only way they can prevent this from happening according to your description would be to *gasp*.. not practice true capitalism (i.e. get the government courts involved, etc).
(Poobah throws a bucket of water on the corporate apologists) Hmm..what's a corporate apologist to do! "I'm melting.. ahh, you wicked girl.. I'm melllllllting"
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Sure the internet has lots of porn and piracy, but I'm sure there's a downside to it. | |
| | | Reviews:
·Comcast
| Re: Qwest between a rock and a hard place You have a lot of opinions, but I think your getting carried away just a little. I've read some of your past posts, and you seem to contradict yourself heavily here. Do you want pure capitalism? Then the rbocs should not have to share the network with other carriers. If so, then the other technologies like cable, wireless etc should too. You want true capitalism? Local governments should not provide broadband then, that is a community , coming from commune , ie a communist ideology and therefore very far from what you want to achieve. You want pure capitalism? Then by all means verizon and the rest of the carriers should be able to pick and choose whom gets ftth. And I'll bet it would not be YOUR neighborhood. It would be the Hampton's NY, Beverly hills CA, etc...
Not that its not happening, but they aren't as flagrant as it would be otherwise. | |
| | | |  oliphantI Have 8 BoobiesPremium
join:2004-11-26
Corona, CA | Re: Qwest between a rock and a hard place With that logic, gov't wouldn't be providing roads either.
Even if they don't provide the content portion of a service, a neutral ground of infrastructure would certainly be of benefit. You would then have content providers competiting for customers and unlike FIOS or other deployments you don't have customers having the choice of take it or leave it.
I feel this gov't deployment should only be done by munis who have bonds passed by the locals to pay for it so those using it are the ones paying for it.
What true capitalism? Get rid of public schools and every other public service. Partial capitalism works just fine, as does muni broadband.
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WAR HAS NEVER SOLVED ANYTHING, except ending slavery, facism, communism, Nazism.... | |
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amungusPremium
join:2004-11-26
America | if that's plenty... then why do japan, korea, or other asian countries have so much more bandwidth already? what idiots.
the potential of fiber to achieve so much more will eventually dwarf what we consider "broadband" these days... | |
| | cptmilesPremium
join:2004-04-22
Swayzee, IN | Re: if that's plenty... Easy, its called government subsidies or in some cases the government building it. If our government put the same passion into Internet growth (rightly or wrongly) that the Internet superpowers do we would have the same result here. In 1928 President Hoover said, "A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage." In today's world we need President to say, "Affordable Healthcare, Oil Independence, and a Gig of Bandwidth for every home." Or something along those lines.
Unfortunately, for us geek's on this website about half of the Americans that would hear that slogan wouldn't understand what a Gig is, let alone elect someone who is going to give it to them.
My $.02. | |
| | |  elbm
join:2000-08-03
Reisterstown, MD | Re: if that's plenty... said by cptmiles:Easy, its called government subsidies or in some cases the government building it. That and South Korea and Japan are 1% and 3% , respectively, the geographic size of the US. | |
| | | RayWPremium
join:2001-09-01
Layton, UT
kudos:1 | said by cptmiles:Easy, its called government subsidies or in some cases the government building it. If our government put the same passion into Internet growth (rightly or wrongly) that the Internet superpowers do we would have the same result here. The only thing industry wants is a handout. Look at the effort the industry puts into STOPPING local governmental buildouts by buying off higher level judges and lawmakers. No, do not blame the government, except for not telling the the Telco and Cableco to take a hike and get to work or we will do it ourselves.
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I am not lost, I find myself every time. | |
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| | | said by amungus:then why do japan, korea, or other asian countries have so much more bandwidth already? what idiots. the potential of fiber to achieve so much more will eventually dwarf what we consider "broadband" these days... Because in the usa, broadband is not a priority. You know what is top priority? Cable, TV and news coverage. | |
| | | | | Re: if that's plenty... Where I live in Ontario, we've had 10meg/1meg service for well over a year now. I had the service for over a year and decided to drop the service down to 5meg because of lack of servers online that were supporting my speeds.
The only networks that every topped me out at 1.2mb/s was microsofts. and really large download services. | |
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See 11 replies to this post |
|  NyQuil Kid8f The Nyquil Kid
join:2001-01-06
Brick, NJ | Because Japan, Korea and most Asian countries (except China) are vastly smaller in both size and population. Therefore, it is very easy to wire a small country with 20 million people than a huge country with 300 million.
I will however admit that the current regulatory environment doesn't exactly promote greater broadband expansion.
[8F] The NyQuil Kid
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[8F] The NyQuil Kid comes into town not looking for trouble...n00bz gang up, but he ain't seein' double,...pulls and draws, his deagles two...n00bz litter the ground you know it's true. | |
| | fiberguyMy views are my own.Premium
join:2005-05-20
kudos:3 | Why not move to one of those select countries too.
Their economic structure is not the same as ours and I wish people would stop comparing the two. The grass is not always greener on the other side.
Too, I'll stick with a country where Google.com isn't forced to filter the search engine too. | |
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| | The great kreskin predicts Might I predict there may not BE a QWEST rboc in the next 10 years...
You heard it here first folks!
With that said, get started on those muni-fiber effots, PRONTO! | |
| | fiberguyMy views are my own.Premium
join:2005-05-20
kudos:3 | Re: The great kreskin predicts said by mightIpredict :Might I predict there may not BE a QWEST rboc in the next 10 years... You heard it here first folks! I guess you don't listen much to others because people like me and many others have said the same thing for a long time..  However, Qwest is finally moving from red back to black. If they play their cards right, they might be able to pull something off.
Here's the thing too, if you know this - Qwest has the WORST territory, physically, for delivering service to subscribers. They have an area with HORRIBLE weather conditions such as both heat and cold extreams, snow, ice, tornados, as well as mountain terrain and other physical barriers. No one in the industry has ever dismissed this fact and all recognize it as a major challenge for Qwest/US West.
However, arm chair quarterbacking this particular company is not a easy thing to do because they can and will surprise you. Doens't mean that I am still not thinking they won't be around in the next decade - but that's because of their history of total lack of caring about their customers - nothing more. | |
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| | 10-15 Mbps hmmm, thats great for them...too bad Qwest is doing it. You may get that speed when they have a day that they are online, but don't hold your breath that you will be online for more than a couple days before an unexpected "outage". | |
| | Reviews:
·Armstrong Zoom ..
| Re: 10-15 Mbps I have a Quest T1 for a while and never had an outage. Actually been very pleased with Quest.
In fact, after the hurricanes in Texas our Qwest T1 was the only thing working. No cell phones, no electric, no water, no dial tone on land lines however that Qwest T1 stayed up and running the whole time.
(Before you ask, we did have to have generators for our equipment) | |
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jdir
join:2001-05-04
Santa Clara, CA | Plenty....I heard that before Didnt Bill Gates years ago say - 640K is enough?
My PC now has 2G, and I think we could use more if
there are more slot | |
| | | | Re: Plenty....I heard that before No, Bill Gates did not say that.
I still don't get how that myth still has not died yet. | |
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RayWPremium
join:2001-09-01
Layton, UT
kudos:1 | 10-15 Mbps down, how much up? 384Kbps?
said by Utopia FAQ :
UTOPIA's network will deliver 100 Mbps connections in both directions to every private residence and 1 Gbps to businesses Of course, only about 15 Mbps of that will be internet capability for residences, the rest is TV and telephone.
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I am not lost, I find myself every time. | |
| | | vdsl sux In 5-10 years , I think the CEO's of Quest, At&T and Bell South will be slapping themselves for not duplicating Verizons FiOS plans. So, so pathetic. | |
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See 6 replies to this post | |
Reviews:
·Cox HSI
 ·World Lynx
1 edit | Sheesh..... What was that famous line by Bill Gates way back when??? "640K ought to be enough for anybody" (or something like that)....
Not too forward looking, huh?
Qwest CEO ought to think about that... | |
| | Gogo1
join:2004-05-27
Brooklyn, NY | Re: Sheesh..... quote:
What was that famous line by Bill Gates way back when??? "640K ought to be enough for anybody" (or something like that)....
No, that never happened. | |
| | | RayWPremium
join:2001-09-01
Layton, UT
kudos:1 | Re: Sheesh..... said by Gogo1: quote:
What was that famous line by Bill Gates way back when??? "640K ought to be enough for anybody" (or something like that)....
No, that never happened. Odd though that Microsoft was the one that did 640K with system items being placed above that to prevent you from smoothly using more memory. My Atari ST and I believe the MAC OS's were smart enough to plan for unlimited memory (to the extent of the controller).
But, the same concept, despite who did or did not say it. I noticed that they are not saying what UL speed they will give, unlike UTOPIA who is claiming 100/100 M (well, the net portion will be 15/15 M) for residential users.
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I am not lost, I find myself every time. | |
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| | | Qwest is a joke. Fitting they bought out Usworst. This company has like 40% DSL coverage. Not surprising they just don't give a shit about broadband. They'll do it when its convenient, they'll give Salt Lake 90% coverage when Utopia shows up to give Utah fiber optics, so because of this deal they stuck with its idiotic mayor SLC backed out of Utopia almost halting the project. But only when they're backed in a corner do they give a shit about broadband. They just don't care. Thank god AT&T and now Comcast showed up wanting to give excellent Cable internet coverage to Utah or Utahns would be in a world of hurt.
This company really needs to rename to Qworst. | |
| | |  roamer1sticking it out at you
join:2001-03-24
Atlanta, GA | Re: Sheesh..... said by JonIrenicas:This company has like 40% DSL coverage. I've heard a number similar to that before, and I agree that it's ridiculous, especially given that BellSouth (whose territory is similar to Qwest's in that it covers a lot of newer/sprawling cities and a few older, denser ones, and a lot of network similarities, such as both Qwest and BellSouth having an awful lot of customers far from their CO and served by DLC remotes) has something around 80% coverage.
-SC
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"it seems like all you ever buy is Abercrombie and cell phones" --a friend | |
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| | Hope this is true I have Qwest VDSL now and it is great, except that they limit the download to 3mb. Even with the slower speed I will take it over Comcast due to the reliability of the sevice. I've had it since last spring and have had no outages. With Comcast my service was down a lot and speeds were terrible at night. | |
| KompressorPremium
join:2002-02-12
Huntington Beach, CA | Qwest: 10-15Mbps 'Plenty for Foreseeable Future' It should read:
Qwest: 10-15Mbps 'is all we can offer for the foreseeable future' | |
|  marica69Fiber To The FarmPremium
join:2004-07-06
Blooming Prairie, MN | Speed and more speed... Wow, lots of interesting ideas on this. I think that the speed will need to get faster sooner than they (Qwest) are thinking but I am wondering what you all think you would do with the speed?
I work for a small CLEC that is actually starting to put fiber to the home. It is currently sharing a gig to about 20-30 houses but we are already looking at newer gear that goes to 2.5 gigs per group.
We will use it for TV, HDTV, VOD, etc., but after that what do you use the speed to do? And who wants to pay for it?
I am curious, who would pay for 50/50 or 100/100 and how much is that worth? Why is that worth more than 10/2 or even 5/1 when most of the net only moves at 1 to 1.5 megs anyway?
Thanks for sharing your opinions. | |
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