[PLUG-TALK] CenturyLink becoming Quantum Fiber

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Actually I think it's the other way around.  I have a customer that uses Lumen they are a business in an industrial park.  Lumen only delivers over fiber service, NOT copper.  Their prices for fiber internet are ridiculously high compared to the competition, I was in fact able to get Comcast to quote an entire fiber build in cheaper (if we added in phone service)

The ONLY reason they have that customer is because CenturyLink does not provide new copper or small business service of any kind into the park and Comcast does not provide cable internet into the park.  So their existing service is 2 copper POTS lines one for the burglar alarm one for the fax, and a copper PRI going to their old-school NEC phone system.  I tried getting more POTS lines in to upgrade their phone system but no joy.  In order to go to a cheaper VoIP SIP service they would need to upgrade their phone system so they stay with the more expensive Lumen fiber and copper PRI service.

Lumen/CenturyLink's pricing for the non-regulated fiber and other non-POTS service is completely uncompetitive.

I think CL's profitable service right now is delivering fiber-to-the-pole and VHDSL circuits from that down fiber drops to residences.  I don't understand why they have priced their business fiber so uncompetitively but I suspect they may be required to do this because they are a "baby bell" AKA RBOC and subject to federal regulation.

The alternative business fiber providers out there like Comcast were never a part of that

I don't know what the status of regulation is now in the industry but POTS/lan lines are heavily regulated still because local governments see revenue communications taxes on them as moneymakers.

What both the local and federal governments CLAIMED that they were doing is charging communications taxes on the rest of us so that they could subsidize communications for rural and poverty areas.  However, nowadays the big focus is on cell service and internet data.  The government no longer gives a shit if some old grandma out in the sticks gets her 1950's style antique telephone on the wall.  But the taxes that used to fund the rural POTS telephone companies still remain like a ghost.

Instead they want the unregulated cellular companies to build cell towers out in the sticks so that grannie can run her $1000 iphone off the tower.  The cell companies are fighting this.

Meantime rural phone companies like Mollalla Telephone and the like are expanding out their data networks using fiber to the pole and other creative ways of delivering data, and then people get "personal cellular stations" from companies like Verizon that plug into their DSL lines and create a cellular bubble that they can use their iphones in their house in the sticks with.

The whole thing is a mass of obsolete government regulations that redirect some of that tax revenue from some telephone companies to others, and companies use creative ways to qualify unregulated data services for the money and on top of that state and local governments are just flat out using communications tax revenue for their general funds instead of what it was supposedly installed for.

CL is likely stuck in the middle of that mess and has figured out how to make money on the local residential communications side of the house most likely by bleeding off communications tax revenue through a wide variety of sketchy mechanisms but whatever they are doing has caught the large business unregulated data services in a trap, and they can't make money on those and likely want to dump them.

Ted

-----Original Message-----
From: PLUG-talk <plug-talk-bounces at pdxlinux.org> On Behalf Of Paul Heinlein
Sent: Friday, May 5, 2023 2:55 PM
To: Off-topic and potentially flammable discussion <plug-talk at pdxlinux.org>
Subject: Re: [PLUG-TALK] CenturyLink becoming Quantum Fiber

On Fri, 5 May 2023, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> It's part of a rebranding they have been doing for a while
>
> https://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/centurylink-rebrands-re-defines-
> enterprise-sector-as-lumen-technology

Thank you for the link.

The article intimates what I suspected: that this is part of a move to sell off residential service. That's not happening immediately, but it looks like Lumen (the new parent company) is positioning itself to unload Quantum (focused on residential and small business customers) at some point.

-- 
Paul Heinlein
heinlein at madboa.com
45°22'48" N, 122°35'36" W
_______________________________________________
PLUG: https://pdxlinux.org
PLUG-talk mailing list
PLUG-talk at pdxlinux.org
https://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-talk