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Optical Illusion: Qwest's Concern for Consumers
I was quoted in a City Weekly article on what Salt Lake City mayoral candidates think about municipal broadband in general and Utopia in particular. It wasn’t my quote, however, that caught my eye, but one from Jerry Fenn. Jerry is a lawyer by training and Qwest’s Utah President (a position that’s mostly about lobbying, I think):
Fenn admits that Qwest has been on “the other side of municipally backed telecom projects” mostly because of the long-term harm to consumers.From Salt Lake City Weekly - Optical Illusion
Referenced Wed Jun 13 2007 22:00:46 GMT-0600 (MDT)
Is there anyone, and I mean anyone, including Jerry’s wife and kids, who believes that Qwest is in this fight because they are concerned about “consumers?” The amazing thing is that Jerry could say that to your face and not even crack a smile.
I’d love to see a study on the net effect of municipal broadband. I think residents of cities in Utah with municipal broadband have benefited regardless of whether they’ve signed up for the service or not. Whenever Utopia goes into a neighborhood, Qwest and Comcast drop their rates to keep their customers.
Posted by windley on June 13, 2007 10:10 PM
Comment from Bruce Conrad at June 14, 2007 7:23 AM
It is difficult for me to keep my blood pressure in check when thinking about Qwest. If I blogged, there would be a long and tortuous story or two about our dealings with them. The short story is that we no longer do business with them. Every customer "service" rep seems to be a sales rep--once you can get through the menus. In short, "the spirit of service in action" is a bald-faced lie and definitely false advertising. Qwest's only concern for customers is extracting the last dollar. We quite enjoyed Utopia until our move to SLC.
Comment from Kyle Bulkley at June 14, 2007 8:15 AM
The real liar is you Phil, not Jerry. And making it personal, "wife and kids"? Shameful! You say, "Whenever Utopia goes into a neighborhood, Qwest and Comcast drop their rates to keep their customers." While that may be true of Comcast, Qwest has not changed their prices in a specific geographic area, UTOPIA/iProvo or otherwise. I'm surprised you're not talking up all the wonderful successes of UTOPIA and iProvo. All the press I've seen on iProvo is that they continue to lose money and won't breakeven until 2011, if ever. Why don't you talk about that and how our city council just voted to use our sales tax dollars to pay for the bond, using money that should be paying for employees, park and rec, police and fire, public works, etc. Come on Phil, let's be honest about this whole boondoggle.
Comment from Kyle Bulkley at June 14, 2007 8:15 AM
The real liar is you Phil, not Jerry. And making it personal, "wife and kids"? Shameful! You say, "Whenever Utopia goes into a neighborhood, Qwest and Comcast drop their rates to keep their customers." While that may be true of Comcast, Qwest has not changed their prices in a specific geographic area, UTOPIA/iProvo or otherwise. I'm surprised you're not talking up all the wonderful successes of UTOPIA and iProvo. All the press I've seen on iProvo is that they continue to lose money and won't breakeven until 2011, if ever. Why don't you talk about that and how our city council just voted to use our sales tax dollars to pay for the bond, using money that should be paying for employees, park and rec, police and fire, public works, etc. Come on Phil, let's be honest about this whole boondoggle.
Comment from Cid Dennis at June 14, 2007 8:24 AM
Qwest is a snake. They have commercials out right now about how fast Qwest internet is. In the ads they have people saying things like "It seems faster to me". While technically that is not a lie as it is an opinion they portray it as fact. And I know for a fact that the DSL is no faster than my cable. They mislead people every time that commercial airs.
Also I mean really how would giving people free internet be bad for the people. Bad for Qwest yes bad for the public no.
Comment from Jesse Harris at June 14, 2007 8:35 AM
And by "consumers", Qwest obviously means "shareholders". If they were really interested in helping consumers, maybe they should have kept up their end of the deal from the 1996 Telecommunications Act, eh? Perhaps they'd prefer to cut each of their customers a $2,000 check to make up for how much they gouged us under that debacle.
Kyle: Perhaps you are unaware that Qwest promised in 1996 to build fiber optic lines capable of 45Mbps within a decade in exchange for increased fees and relaxed regulations. This is well-documented. It's also well-documented that they completely and totally failed to deliver on this in any way, shape or form. You might be interested in giving Qwest a free pass on this industry-wide $200B scandal, but some of us are not willing to believe even one more lie from their monopolistic incumbency. I hope the incumbent carriers choke and die on their own greed.
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