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

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (1596)	6/23/1998 10:10:00 AM
From: Rashe W. Stephens III	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6846

Frank, I can see where you're coming from, but I'd like to make a few counterpoints by examining what some of QWST's so-called competition is doing. Take for instance Worldcom. Worldcom has long been a seller of excess capacity. They've probably scaled that back a bit with MCI's bandwidth crunch, but they used some dark fiber sales to finance the construction of their local networks. Now Worldcom has announced that they are going to resale elements of these local networks. Isn't that counterintuitive? All major CLECs sell capacity to their competitors. The Bells routinely buy private lines from the CLECs in areas where they don't have fiber or for redundancy. A big portion of CLEC business is selling POP to POP connections to IXCs. At the same time they often sell private lines to businesses and market switched services (which may include LD). To me it's a lot like any facilities based LD carrier allowing a reseller to sell its services. This potentially is feeding your competition. Granted, I can see your point that they probably shouldn't be in the business of selling dark fiber to AT&T or MCI, and the fibers that GTE and Froniter own could haunt them. But, I can't see the harm in selling to a CLEC like ELI, an ISP like Verio, or a cellular/rural LEC like Alltel. These types of companies fill different niches than what QWST fills currently. More importantly they fill a different niche than what Qwest will fill: a bulk mover of data and mutlimedia. Just my two cents. You raise a good point. I'd like to know what you have to think. It's good to punch holes in a strategy to see if it really stands up. I've tried to poke a lot of holes in QWST's strategy and it just seems to be rock solid.

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (1596)	6/24/1998 2:46:00 PM
From: Phil Jacobson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6846

They are both selling dark fiber and attempting to make an impact in the traditional network provisions arena, along with the staffing of engineering and implementation departments and back office provisions, customer care, the broader context of global networking, and all that that implies, with regard to creating a frame work based on architectural requirements and the adherence to a multitude of standards compliances. Frank, with the above lines you have hit the QWST nail on the head. If they don't decide which way they want to go they will be what their detractors say and end up as nothing more than a very good construction company (that happens to own LCI). They need to get their company focused from the top to the bottom on the segments of telecom where they want to be strong and do a good focused job. Otherwise they will find it very hard to compete against companies that are experienced and focused. Phil