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Technology Stocks : Qwest Communications (Q) (formerly QWST) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 2MAR$ who wrote (4441)	6/28/1999 7:33:00 AM
From: rest42	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6846

If the future of long distance is packets and those packets generated by computer and the computer being connected at the local exchange making all calls local and the future of long distance revenue is in decline heading to zero then why would anyone want to invest soley in a long distance carrier??? Internet telephony is changing the whole business-------right now for a reasonable amount of money I can purchase equipment to make all my long distance calls local and avoid any long distance charges. So if I was in a business where I could see my product being offered for free and everyday my competitors were slashing prices on the products I could still sell and if I wanted to stay in the business, I would have to shift my thinking and rewrite my business plan and look for other ways to grow revenues. I think customer base becomes important!The more customers I have the more services other than long distance I have to offer. So if all calls become local and I have to offer more and I have to increase my customer base then what am I after. I think it has to be bandwith. I think the pipes going into the home are everything and I think from what I have read Uswest is a leader in this. I think a subscriber base over my own lines is what I would be after.I could package loads of services over my dsl lines and charge a flat fee and while I would offer any of my competitors the right to lease lines from me so they could effectively compete with me,but at least I would still get paid for it. So scale is important and customer base is important while long distance service is becoming less and less important. The point of entry to all theses internet services is my goal and if you are always in the middle rather than being at the start or at the end then I would think your chances for success would be diminshed.I think the middle was profitable for awhile especially when there was not as many users and the service was not as ubiquitous,but now that the service is basically everywhere and the middle is not as lucrative anymore then I have to go back to the roots of telephone and that root is the infamous "last mile" but I think the last mile is really the "first-the point of origin- mile" and the first mile is already owned by the Baby bells. At&t is not going to go out and gobble up baby bells because of government interference so instead they are buying the first mile by purchasing cable companies.Telephones don't receive information like cable does ,it generates information.Telephone generates an outflow of information that becomes an inflow of information once the receiver is picked up on the other end and the cable companies are trying to imitate this phenomenon by offering internet access to make cable an input output device while the telephone is the natural branded method of these style of interaction.So I think Qwest is wise to pursue Uswest and get into bed with Bellsouth and either co-opt or lose out on Frontier and get their tendrils into the points origination with the local carriers.Either that or they better go out and buy some cable companies and begin the re-education of America in how they interact with each other over lines.I don't think people want change I think they want conveinence and they are used to the phone and somehow I don't think that will change that much if the phone can offer much the same as evryone else.