Since Qwest is hemorrhaging landline customers at an amazing pace (259,000 last quarter alone), they're eager to rebrand themselves as a next-generation broadband company. The problem is that Qwest is still nursing last-gen copper technology, their "next-gen" ADSL2+ upgrades (when they're available to consumers) offering downstream speeds up to 20Mbps, but upstream speeds limited to a paltry 896kbps. While Qwest advertises this as fiber Internet, it's simply not going to be competitive against DOCSIS 3.0.

But things may be changing, if a flurry of new posts to our forums are any indication. According to this post by someone claiming to have inside knowledge, Qwest is shifting from ADSL2+ technology to VDSL2 -- which should allow them to provide faster downstream and upstream speeds. According to the poster, Qwest later this month will be announcing a slew of new speed tiers, including some significantly faster tiers that top out at 40Mbps downstream and 20Mbps upstream. The new tiers and prices, according to the source:Unlike AT&T, Qwest has no interest in becoming an IPTV operator, so they don't have to worry about HDTV signals eating up precious bandwidth. While AT&T has no real excuse, Qwest can't jump directly to fiber to the home because they simply don't have the financial resources -- or a wireless division cash cow. If the prices are real, they're not particularly impressive -- and these quotes prices jump $10 if users don't include a Qwest landline. Still, they're worlds better that what Qwest was trying to hoist upon consumers as a "next-gen" product.

So are they real? We've reached out to Qwest to confirm these plans, but have yet to hear back (we'll obviously update you when we do). One of our users notes that Qwest's price for life disclaimer does seem to reference the new Ultimate tier, supporting the claim of a new product launch. Forum discussion indicates the new tiers would only work with the Actiontec Q1000, and the upgrade simply requires a new card at the DSLAM. Corroborating posts claiming to be from inside the Qwest sales department also hint at a Denver launch.

As with all DSL, the problem for Qwest will again be distance -- something that's plagued AT&T since deciding to placate investors and prolong the inevitable shift to fiber. We'd also wonder just how limited the overall footprint reach of this new product will be, given Qwest's persistent debt, and the high volume of Qwest customers who are still slogging away on older ADSL technology. Hopefully we'll have more on this soon...