| Qwest’s Gambit: Offering 5 Meg In A 50 Meg Country |
| Sunday, 01 March 2009 06:06 |
Qwest requests $3B to make 5-7 meg DSL available to two million homes, of which more than half are already served by equipment designed for 10 megabits. I’ve asked for details, but it’s likely that most of the money  would be used for equipment and company upgrades, so relatively few jobs will be created. Qwest is likely to cover many of those homes without subsidy, because cable is otherwise will take most of the profitable customers in those areas. The first priority of the stimulus is to create jobs. The second is to bring broadband to the unserved. On the merits, Qwest would likely get little or no stimulus money. But Qwest is requesting support from the Governors of several states, and perhaps expecting that political pressure will achieve their goals. Since AT&T is bringing 25 megabits to over 30M homes at a cost of less than $300/home, it’s very surprising that Qwest requires five times that amount to bring a slower service, even in rural areas. Many of the homes can achieve those speeds with a the simple installation of a $200 repeater. In addition, based on FCC reports, it’s unlikely that most of the homes Qwest is calling “unserved” actually cannot get broadband. I’m sending over to Qwest a request for the information needed to confirm their claims. Here’s some of the comments from Qwest’s Senior Vice-President Larry Sarjeant, “Qwest’s analysis of the cost of expanding our current 85% broadband availability to 95%, and delivering 7 Megabit speed to those who are unserved in Qwest’s 14-state service territory, is $3B. This would expand access to an additional two million businesses and residents in our region. In Colorado, where Qwest is headquartered, $460M would allow us to reach another 225,000 residential and business customers. Today, areas without broadband access exist because the cost to deploy the necessary facilities to theses areas far exceeds any reasonable return on the required capital investment. |
