"Spirit of Service" is the latest motto for
Qwest Communications, the largest telephone and
broadband provider in New Mexico. I find this
advertising campaign and all the others before it a bad
joke on New Mexicans.
For the past four years, Qwest has been a thorn in
the side of local Internet service providers for the
company's billing problems and its inability to fulfill
its contract with the state to upgrade
telecommunications service in New Mexico. Qwest was
supposed to move many rural communities here into the
21st century by providing them with broadband
capabilities. But Qwest is claiming it can't do the job.
Whether Qwest has the cash to do so is not New
Mexico's problem. A deal's a deal. And Qwest's inability
to live up to the bargain is jeopardizing the lives of
those who are chronically ill and medically fragile.
I work part time with the Center for Development and
Disability, a department of the Pediatrics School of
Medicine at the University of New Mexico. My job is to
make sure the field nurses who take care of medically
fragile children have up-to-date computer systems. These
nurses work in Artesia, Farmington, Clovis and several
other small towns. The only Internet service they have
is a dial-up account that depends on the quality of the
phone lines.
Part of my job is to make sure the patient
information the nurses need to transmit to the home
office gets there smoothly. This duty is stymied by
Qwest's failure to upgrade phone lines. The dial-up
process is the slowest way to access the Internet. The
quality of the phone lines determines the speed at which
one can download and upload. Nurses have documented
several occasions on which the poor phone lines have
dropped important downloads, jeopardizing the integrity
of their computers.
Instead of uploading upgrades to their virus
protection and other important computer applications,
I'm forced to send them CDs to ensure that their
computers are protected and up to date. Some nurses have
given up trying to transmit their patient reports and
have relied on fax machines instead. This creates a
workload and a redundancy that is completely avoidable -
if Qwest would bite the bullet and do what its contract
says.
Gov. Bill Richardson and the Legislature have been
wrangling with Qwest over the alternative form of
regulation order settlement, which expired in 2005, and
the original agreement that gave Qwest a pass on the
fines it should have paid for failing to fulfill its
timeline. A court battle might be the final solution.
Richardson and the Public Regulation Commission need
to light a fire under Qwest. The quality of life for the
disabled population here is depending on it.
McKee, a wheelchair user, is a freelance writer
and producer. You can e-mail her at chairgrrl@chairgrrl.com.
