As some of you might be aware sore of might not be, Kennecott Land is in the process of negotiating a new contract with Qwest for the internet service that is provided via our HOA fees. Well the Qwest representative for Daybreak claims the contract has been renewed, however Kennecott Land says it has not and is still in process.

     A lot of Daybreak Homeowners have had issues getting their internet set up and there have been numerous customer service issues with Qwest (I know about this first hand). One of the biggest issues that Daybreak Homeowners are running into is that when you call the Daybreak Qwest representative most of the time they get a voicemail and in about 90% of the situations I have heard about those Daybreak Homeowners who left message never got a single call back. One of the other issues Daybreak Homeowners are having is that when they call the 800 number for Qwest nobody at Qwest knows how to handle the Daybreak calls. The one thing that I do hear, which is good news, is that the Qwest on site person for Daybreak, his name is Jason, has been extremely helpful in most cases in helping Daybreak Homeowners.

     Anyways, one of our Daybreak Homeowners Mr. Homer has done some research and sent this table of internet costs to Mr. Snyder at Kennecott Land (VP at Kennecott Land in charge of Daybreak) along with some questions which I have listed below. Once Mr. Homer hears back from Kennecott Land and shares his findings with me I will update this article with the answers provided from Kennecott Land.

Carrier	Plan	Cost	Cost Per Meg
Verizon	10 Mbps / 2 Mbps	$47.99	$4.80
Verizon	20 Mbps/ 5 Mbps	$57.99	$2.90
Verizon	20 Mbps/ 20 Mbps	$69.99	$3.50
Verizon	50 Mbps / 20 Mbps	$139.95	$2.80
Qwest Titanium (Fiber Offering Outside Daybreak)	12 Mbps / 1 Mbps	$51.95	$4.33
Qwest Quantum (Fiber Offering Outside Daybreak)	20 Mbps/ 1 Mbps	$104.99	$5.25
Qwest Daybreak	5 Mbps / 1 Mbps	$35.00	$7.00
Comcast Daybreak	6 Mbps / 348 Kbps (burst to 12 Mbps / 2 Mbps)	$42.95	$7.16
Comcast Daybreak	16 Mbps	$52.95	$3.31
Mstar via Utopia (in other parts of metro Salt Lake)	15 Mbps / 15 Mbps	$39.95	$2.66
Mstar via Utopia (in other parts of metro Salt Lake)	30 Mbps / 30 Mbps	$49.95	$1.67
Mstar via Utopia (in other parts of metro Salt Lake)	50 Mbps / 50 Mbps	$59.95	$1.20
AT&T DSL	6 Mbps / 768 Kbps	$35.00	$5.83
Qwest DSL Outside of Daybreak (Month to Month)	7 Mbps / ?	$49.99	$7.14
Qwest DSL Outside of Daybreak (2 year commit)	7 Mbps / ?	$36.99	$5.28

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     We are paying $7/meg.  Qwest's comparable DSL offering is only $7.14 per meg.  Comcast's comparable offering is $7.16 per meg but it can burst to double the bandwidth we are getting, nto to mention we would get better customer service. So basically this is saying that KL was only able to negotiate 14 to 16 cents off what residents could have gotten on their own when KL had the collective bargaining power of a few thousand homes. However, that's not even a fair comparison because the other two offerings are month to month contracts while Daybreak is committed to the length of the contract term.

How soon do you expect the renegotiations to be completed?   

What bandwidth and price are you trying to renegotiate to?   

Are you asking for symmetrical up and down speeds?   

Are you asking to allow static IPs or a product offering for those who want more than the base offering?  

Will there be an opt out clause for residents?   

Are there SLA's that the HOA can hold Qwest to if there is down time for the community?   What legal firm(s) are you using?    

Who is on Daybreak's side of the table that has any prior experience in telecommunications negotiations and broadband pricing?   

Who is on Daybreak's side of the table that understands FTTH from a technical perspective?   

How much oversubscribing of the backbone are you allowing Qwest to do for Daybreak? (2000 homes *  5 Megs = 10 Gigs of bandwidth needed. How much trunked bandwidth do they have from Daybreak?)

If so what did they say? 

If not, why not?