YEA for Qwest!

Implications: Qwest has been floundering as a phone company for years, having to deal with PSC fines and general business issues, which appeared to be keeping them from setting goals on newer technology and moving ahead with data sales in particular.  Their FTTNode strategy appears to be solving some of their problems, as they are seeing DSL growth in decent numbers in a down market as experienced by the big players.

Analysis: I am so proud of Qwest!  The referenced article points to net broadband adds of 31,000 in the second quarter, down from 100,000 a year ago, same timeframe.  This seems low unless you compare it to ATT and Verizon growth who experienced proportionally less DSL growth according to their huge size.  Qwest has embarked on a FTTNode strategy similar to ATT's Uverse without the video piece riding the hybrid fiber/copper medium.  The video is supplied by DirecTV, allowing Qwest to sell 20 mbs data in the copper solution.  The article mentions that Qest has budgeted $300M for the buildout of their FTTN project, passing 1M homes so far, with 19k DSL sales coming from the FTTN network.  ATT can only provide 10mbs of data at this writing, saving the bulk of their Uverse bandwidth for video (high definition and standard video). 
Here is an interesting scenario that ATT may be considering as they are having to deal with Verizon stepping into the ATT franchise in TX and maybe 4 other video-friendly franchise states.  If Verizon is going to build their FTTH, super robust, FIOS network on top of Uverse, with all its limitations, why not adopt the Qwest model for video in those competitive situations?  DirecTV could provide the video, including 100plus HD channels, and data speed sales could be boosted from 10mbs max to possibly 30mbs in the copper.  Video on demand could be provided by the data network and/or DirecTV via the direct broadcast satellite dish.  This would put ATT in a better competitive situation relative to FIOS and all its wonderful bells and whistles and basically unlimited bandwidth, allowing ATT to delay even longer their eventual move to FTTH.  Who knows?  Maybe they are thinking about it now, with the possible re-bid of the direct broadcast contract between Dish and DirecTV in September.  Anyway, hats off to Qwest for just doing something positive and interesting.