www.omaha.com wrote:NEW YORK (AP) — CenturyTel Inc. said Thursday that it will buy Qwest Communications International Inc. in a stock swap worth $10.6 billion, creating a telecommunications giant serving customers in 37 states.
The deal unites the third and fifth-largest telephone companies in the U.S. by number of traditional phone lines.
Together, they'll have about 18 million phone lines, but that number is expected to continue to shrink by about 10 percent per year as consumers chose to rely on their wireless phones or service from cable companies. The fourth-largest provider of landline phone service in the country, by the number of subscribers, is now cable company Comcast Corp.
The acquisition continues a trend of consolidation in a shrinking industry. Neither Qwest nor CenturyTel own wireless networks that can compensate for the loss of landlines, like AT&T and Verizon Communications Inc. do.
Has anyone else been seeing CenturyLink trucks all over the place? Â It seems like they are running a lot of new cable before they enter the market. Â I hope they can be a legitimate alternative to Cox.
iamjacobm wrote:Has anyone else been seeing CenturyLink trucks all over the place? It seems like they are running a lot of new cable before they enter the market. I hope they can be a legitimate alternative to Cox.
Qwest has a pretty extensive cable/fiber network in the Omaha area, just about anywhere you can order Cox services, you can order some level of a Qwest service - business or residential.
iamjacobm wrote:Has anyone else been seeing CenturyLink trucks all over the place? It seems like they are running a lot of new cable before they enter the market. I hope they can be a legitimate alternative to Cox.
Qwest has a pretty extensive cable/fiber network in the Omaha area, just about anywhere you can order Cox services, you can order some level of a Qwest service - business or residential.
Yes you can get it almost anywhere, but that doesn't make it a viable competitor to Cox in Omaha. Â In Omaha you have the choice of 3, 15, or 22 mbps Centurylink only offers 1.5 and 7 mbps. Â They also don't have their own cable service which will always keep them second fiddle here.
Stayed with a friend in the Bronx with FIOS last year. That was fan-flipping-tastic...would definitely switch to that from Cox if the price was reasonable for the service.
This would only be available anywhere CenturyLink has a managed fiber optic network present. I highly doubt regional fox sports channels will be available unless they are in the different markets in many different cities.
Prism in now available in 8 cities, Jefferson City and Columbia, MO being the closest.
