Qwest cuts SkyWi's telecom network in the US Mid-West

02 January 2009

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.