You almost forget that at one time, Qwest was a disruptive force in telecom. When then CEO Joseph Nachio was at his megalomaniac best, before the US West merger. Of course one man’s disruptive force is another’s multi-count felony conviction (how ironic is it that Nachio is suing his past lawyer for malpractice). But I digress. The more important news is that name Qwest, will soon fade into obscurity as CenturyLink has gained its last necessary acquisition approval from Oregon.
All that’s left is the formal closing, which is expected to happen April 1st. CenturyLink agreed to provide $45 million in broadband investment in the state over the next five years to seal the deal. The new combined CenturyLink will serve about 800K lines in Oregon.
In addition to the combined millions of access lines and broadband customers, the new combined company will operate a 180,000-route-mile national fiber network, a significant asset to own in today’s marketplace. Bye, bye Qwest, it was nice to know you.
Bye Bye good jobs, community involvement and life time savings and retirement for QWEST / US West workers – I’ll be surprised if CenturyLink contributes anywhere near what QWEST / US West has to the economic growth and stability of the served communities.
I for one feel a sense of sadness every time I enter an old Qwest facility that once was a thriving center and hub of activity providing good jobs for many hard working Americans and now are just an empty sarcophagus with hardly a body to be found.
I haven't decided if I will be doing the happy on finally seeing Qwest go away or aprehensive of what the new management will be doing.
If it hadn't been for Qwest complete disregard of our communications needs here in Oskaloosa, Iowa we wouldn't have gone ahead and formed a CLEC, a cable franchise, and a broadband ISP company now employing 42 people.
We wouldn't have built 300+ miles of fiber to the home to bypass the crappy 26AWG paper-wrap copper lines Qwest inherited from US West. We would still be at the mercy of any thunderstorm that would take our phone services down for days.