Qwest DSL
Qwest DSL is the high speed alternative to cable television service in the Westen United States. Here you will find the basics on Qwest High Speed internet service, as well as the latest promotional deals available from the Telco provider. Lets first take a look at Qwest as a company, and where you can get Qwest DSL internet service.
Qwest has been around for about 15 years, originally starting as a long distance company. As they deployed fiber optic lines in the late 1990’s, they became a Wall Street darling and their stock price soared. They purchased Regional Bell Operating Company US West in 2000, and were able to integrate the landline business into their fiber optic network. Today, Qwest is much smaller than their sister companies Verizon and AT&T, and have a much more challenging environment as they cover much of West with the exception of California and Nevada.
Qwest has experience line loss over the last decade due to two factors. The first is wireless technology, as many have decided to drop their home phone line and simply use their cell phone for all of their calling. The second is increased competition, as cable TV companies now offer home phone service, as do competitive local exchange carriers or CLEC operators. While AT&T and Verizon have been able to weather landline loss due to their wireless divisions, Qwest does not have its own wireless service.
Thus, Qwest DSL has been their primary service to drive revenue growth. With so many people abandoning the traditional phone line, Qwest is evolving into a broadband internet company and leaving their phone company roots behind. Now that is not to say that you can’t get regular phone service from Qwest, they certainly can and will provide you traditional dial tone service if that is what you need. But from their perspective, it is much more important that Qwest DSL become the cornerstone of a Qwest bundle in order to encourage subscriber loyalty.
The primary areas where Qwest DSL is available are Minnesota, Colorado, Arizona, and Washington state. Large cities like Denver, Phoenix, Minneapolis and Seattle are strongholds for Qwest. Moderately populated states served by Qwest include Oregon, Iowa, Utah and New Mexico. Qwest DSL is also available in Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Idaho. As you can see, Qwest does not cover a single state with a population in the top 10, and covers five states in the bottom 10 in head count. This means a challenging environment when it comes to growing revenue with their DSL service.
One advantage the company does have with their Qwest bundled option is the ability to offer multiple services at a lower price. Cable television companies like Comcast pioneered the triple play bundle several years ago, and subscribers jumped at the chance to have one company provide all of their communication services. With packages including cable TV, high speed internet, and home telephone service for one price, it is both convenient and cost effective to deal with one company if possible. The trick though is to be sure of the pricing after any promotional period. Often you will find that you can get these services for a low price for one year, but after that it goes up significantly.
Qwest DSL packages being offered fall into a similar pattern. An example is the Qwest Best Value bundle which is being offered in February, 2010. This package includes the Qwest DSL 7 Mbps service, unlimited home phone service including long distance, and the DIRECTV Choice Xtra package with HD programming. This Qwest package is offered at $99.99 a month for the first 12 months, but after that it goes up in price. It is also important to note that Qwest does not offer its own video service like Verizon with their FiOS TV package. Qwest has not enhanced its network to offer cable TV, so at this time is has a resale agreement in place to offer DIRECTV satellite TV instead.
Another important thing to look at when considering Qwest DSL is their pricing structure if you do not want to go with a bundle. Qwest DSL pricing starts as low as $19.99 a month for the 1.5 Mbps service, that is as long as you also subscribe to a basic phone line in addition to your digital subscriber line. If you want Qwest DSL without a home line, also known as “naked DSL” you can get that for $30 a month. The downside is there is often a higher activation fee if you want a DSL only line, so there is a bit of an incentive to get dial tone service with your DSL. Qwest DSL works over the same line as your home phone service so it makes it easy for both the customer and Qwest if you subscribe to both services.
While Qwest has not started their own cable TV service like AT&T U-verse or Verizon FiOS, they have been upgrading their network over the past year to offer faster DSL speeds. This is a necessity a consumers have become used to faster speeds, and again because of competition. Cox cable and Comcast, two primary competitors with Qwest now offer cable internet speeds of 15 Mbps. Qwest DSL has responded by offering their Fiber-optic fast internet. The top offer here is the Qwest Quantam service, which offers download speeds up to 20 Mbps. Speeds like this allow customers to download full length movies in 15 minutes or so, and also help telecommuters with connecting to their corporate network.
Other Qwest DSL plans include the Titanium level, which supports speed up to 12 Mbps, the Platinum level which tops out at 7 Mbps, and the Gold tier. Even with the Qwest Gold DSL you will get speeds of 1.5 Mbps, which are more than 50 times traditional dial up modems. While cable TV internet speeds generally are faster that the low level Qwest DSL offers, those who don’t need a lot of bandwidth will certainly be able to do what they want with basic Qwest high speed internet.
