It shows it's not just running after (just) any customer. The future trend is pretty positive but I don't expect any major moves in the share price.
They're doing all the right things to play defense. It's hard to win longer-term just playing defense, and they don't have a lot of offensive weapons.
It's so rare for anything in the telecom sector to show any kind of growth, but they're taking it away from AT&T and MCI and the Baby Bells.
Qwest is definitely the orphan Bell. I really don't see Qwest as an attractive acquisition target for several years.
If this works for Level 3, this is a real turning point. This really gives them a good footprint in the mid-Atlantic and the Southeast.
(Level 3) still has a few more quarters before building sales momentum, but it's not going to go bankrupt - not right away at least. I think they're OK for a few years.
Level 3 is trying to consolidate the small players, trying to amass enough local scale so they don't have to build everything (from scratch).
All that could be pulled into the West umbrella.
It will be interesting to see how they finesse that.
The one thing that Qwest has is its local franchise, and over the next two years it's going to become increasingly embattled as (cable company) Comcast starts rolling out more aggressively with their digital voice service. I don't think they get acquired at all.
