Qwest wants out of pact to pay fines for poor service (Washington State)

[Ediacara]

Qwest wants out of pact to pay fines for poor service

By CANDACE HECKMAN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Qwest Communications has asked state regulators to terminate a special agreement to hold the company financially liable for its quality of customer service.

But staff at the state Utilities and Transportation Commission said that they are reluctant to allow the company to drop this added assurance that Qwest will do good by its customers.

This year, in accordance with a deal made with the commission, Qwest will pay $1.9 million in credits for failing to meet five of eight service standards that the company agreed to as a condition of its merger with U S West Communications in 2000. "It's not as if we're going to get away with anything," said Mark Reynolds, Qwest's regulatory director. "If anything changes, our service is going to get even better."

That's because a few dozen new telephone outfits have changed competition in Washington so dramatically that Qwest employees know they must perform to customers' expectations or risk losing them, he said.

More at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

[He loved Big Brother]

1. Worst goddamn company I've ever dealt with

Thank god I don't need a landline now.

[Ediacara]

3. I think I would rather have the Soviet Union's telephone company

They really take the fact they're a monopoly to heart, and I'm sure train their employees to be as vicious and stupid as possible. And how dare they want to get out of a pact promising to be nice to customers! I thought that was the fucking Capitolist Way: be nice to people and offer a superior product and they'll buy your product. QWEST doesn't offer nice people, or a superior product, yet they're a fucking monopoly in most areas so they can't suffer the will of the market as they so richly deserve.

[UpInArms]

2. Carlyle Group owns part of Qwest

http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2002/11/11/daily1.html?jst=s_rs_hl

Washington, D.C.-based The Carlyle Group and New York-based Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe will take over the directory services unit in Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota under a new venture called Dex Media Inc.

Qwest will use the cash proceeds from the sale to pay down its debt load.

Qwest employs about 1,380 people through the QwestDex directory services unit in the seven- state service area. Dex Media will maintain the QwestDex brand name for consumer familiarity.

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