What’s Next for Qwest?

from Dr. Judy Reed Smith at Atlantic-ACM: "But MCI isn’t the last IXC on the block. For interested parties, Qwest or other, there are many national and international networks, including many newer than MCI’s, that could be considered. For nationwide networks, there are Level 3 based right in Colorado, WilTel in Oklahoma and Broadwing in Texas. Global Crossing and iBasis also add international coverage to their US lines. Alltel’s local, long distance and wireless offerings cover more southern states, similar to Qwest with its rural areas and strong smaller cities, and, with the Western Wireless merger, will have more than half of its revenues from wireless ops. ITC^Deltacom also offers interesting coverage in the south, and Notebaert has already been pushing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to force some spinoffs from the SBC-AT&T merger for competitors to pick up. Growth by acquisition is available for all the former market leaders that, post-merger(s), will be relatively small. Network expansion possibilities exist if revenues and appetites exist for acquisitions, and the MCI deal certainly demonstrates this is the case for Qwest." [Ed. note] But what would Qwest do with some of these networks? WilTel, GX and iBasis have the same problem as Qwest: an under-utilized network and a need for paying customers. ITC doesn't own anything interesting (maybe its 23,000 biz customers). Level(3) has big debt and bleeds ink, mainly due to its race to give away IP. Broadwing might be an interesting buy, as would a purchase of Alltel.