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

To: Shibumi who wrote (505)	12/29/1997 7:30:00 PM
From: John Klein	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6846

Excellent post. Thanks for your input. I do indeed consider IP a data strategy, and you are correct in stating that I disagree with this approach. The QOS issue is a real one (and it is not so much an issue of the ability of one layer or another to more effectively transimit latency sensative data - UDP is as effective as any layer 2 protocol, and it goes to the desktop), but instead an issue of who should control the allocation of network resources - the network maniger or the end user. My choice is for the network manager - whether it be the carrier or the local people. There is also the issue of what I will crudely refer to as legacy traffic types - IPX, SNA, AppleTalk, DECNET, etc... Native IP requires that this type of traffic is encapsulated as IP data, effectively moving it up a layer in the protocol stack (exactly what native IP seeks to avoid). Finally, if QWST wishes to become the 'arms dealer' of the data world, and if IP is the munition of choice, sell layer one services, or something at layer two that can guarantee QOS (and bill for it). No one moving wholesale IP will pay someone to re-encapsulate it in IP. At least not now. All of this is my humble opinion, and it is not so much to flame QWST (I love the company's network, and consider it a great stock). Instead, I simply wish to point out what I see as a misguided data strategy. It may be great PR - nothing wrong with that - but 7.5 cents a minute to residential customers just doesn't seem like much of a strategy to me at all. And what's more, it scares me. It is true that QWST has put together a management dream-team - but it is fundamentally an old-school telco management team (as far as I know). When pressed for revenue, what do they do - hock minutes.