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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (5122)	9/4/1999 7:31:00 PM
From: RTev	Respond to of 12823

Part of the Qwest argument was that they will divest/don't have any assets in US West territory to get FCC approval. I think they've said they'd drop long-distance service within the USW territory. I'm not so sure about other services. For instance, Qwest recently began offering DSL service in Seattle, competing with USW here and in a few other cities. But what we see on their network maps is something different. In the west, Qwest's fiber follows the routes of SP and (it appears) Union Pacific in some places. They might even have laid some along the old Santa Fe route before its merger, but they've always skipped the northern Rockies which were served by the pre-merger Burlington Northern. Qwest actually does connect the vast majority of people in the USW territory, just missing those huge unpopulated tracts up north. Even Level(3), which has ROW agreements with BNSF skips the "high-line" -- the northern route of the railroad which goes through Montana and North Dakota. (http://www.level3.com/BuildingNetwork/network_plan.html). Williams also skips it. (http://www.willtales.com/network/non_flash/index.html) In fact, it's amazing that the three of them seem to follow essentially the same routes. (Notice, for instance, the loop all three create in going from Seattle to Boise.) There just aren't many people up there, so it seems to be left to others (like Montana Power) to fiber-ize those areas. (http://www.in-tch.com/products_services/private_line/images/lores_fiber.jpg)