After holding an emergency meeting the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission has ordered network services wholesaler Qwest Communications to restore Internet services to New Mexico's largest independently owned and operated ISP, SkyWi, which it had cut on 30 December due to non payment of $1.7 million dues.

On 30 December Qwest Communications had cut off SkyWi telecommunication network who offers telecommunication services to 5,400 telephone and 13,000 Internet customers including residential, business and government bodies in New Mexico, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Colorado and Texas.

The severing of the telecom network lines has affected several thousand SkyWi customers who continued to be without internet or telephone services, including the Eddy County's offices and sheriff's department whose lines were cut except for the emergency numbers.

Albuquerque-based SkyWi, which has not paid $1.7 million to Qwest since September, was asked by Qwest to pay more than $580,000 by Monday if it wanted the services restored.

"We believe that we are under attack by Qwest Communications," said Jack Leach, SkyWi's president. "SkyWi filed a lawsuit against Qwest in federal court in New Mexico earlier in December regarding Qwest's predatory, anti-competitive and unfair trade practices.
"We itemized Qwest's anti-trust violations, as well as racketeering activities, invoking the Clayton Act and RICO statutes. Qwest has now decided to discontinue the service it had provided to SkyWi," Leach stated.

SkyWi's Complaint, filed on December 5, 2008, cites multiple claims of Qwest's predatory, anti-competitive and unfair trade practices and of its attempts to force SkyWi and One Connect IP / Zianet to close its operations as an Internet service provider (ISP) which compete directly with Qwest. SkyWi has requested a preliminary injunction be entered against Qwest ordering it to treat SkyWi as it would any other company and to provide access and services free from unfair trade practices.

SkyWi has also petitioned for the disqualification of Qwest's legal representation, on the basis that Qwest's legal counsel had previously represented One Connect IP. The federal judge scheduled a hearing on the disqualification request for 5 January 2009 and re-scheduled the hearing on SkyWi's request for a preliminary injunction for January 13, 2009.

"We made a reasonable and fair offer to Qwest to avoid interruption of services until these hearings took place. But that offer was refused by Qwest," explains Leach.

"We are pursuing legal actions against Qwest to reinstate a Temporary Restraining Order issued previously by a state court against Qwest enjoining Qwest from disconnecting SkyWi from services, and SkyWi is working diligently on solutions to insulate ourselves and our customers from Qwest's predatory practices, the same practices which gave rise to SkyWi's lawsuit.

"Even so, much damage has been done. Businesses, government offices and residential customers are experiencing dramatic repercussions in economic terms and educational opportunities."

The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission has now ordered Qwest to restore the communication lines of critical departments of public health and safety and also certain economic firms and wanted a report and explanation on the lines that were not restored.

The PRC also ordered SkyWi to release the list of customers' telephone numbers whose lines have been cut so they can seek alternative telecom providing companies.

SkyWi, like many other independent telecommunication providers, buys wholesale telecom network services from Qwest and then resells them to its customers.

Qwest's spokesman said that SkyWi should not be surprised by the action as it had notified the ISP several months in advance and on numerous occasions.

Qwest decided to discontinue the service it had provided to SkyWi, after it filed the case, said Leach.

With services being cut off, SkyWi is losing approx $23,000 each and is likely to lose many customers to other telecom service provider's although it is trying to partially get its services up and running by taking the services of another telecom provider.

Qwest Communications Corporation is a long distance subsidiary of Qwest that was, until 1995, known as Southern Pacific Telecommunications Company.

It was founded under its present name in 1996 by Philip Anschutz, who owned the Southern Pacific Railroad before its merger with Union Pacific in 1998. Anschutz began installing the first all-digital, fibre-optic infrastructure along thr Southern Pacific Railroad lines, connecting them into central junctions in strategic locations to provide businesses with high-speed data and T1 services. With the Union Pacific merger, Qwest had access to an expnded network of railroad lines to lay fibre-optic cable for its telecom network. Anshutz took advantage of a contract with MCI to lay nationwide fibre along the railway lines to also lay Qwest's own cables along with those for MCI.

Qwest Communications has grown aggressively, through a series of acquisitions of providers of internet services, a low cost long distance carrier and a web hosting provider, which launched it as not only a provider of high speed data to the niche market of corporate customers, but also a quick-growing residential and business long distance customer base that it quickly merged into its data service.