Qwest ordered to restore Net service

SANTA FE (KRQE) - In an emergency meeting Wednesday afternoon the state Public Regulation Commission ordered Qwest Communications to restore service to an independent Internet provider with thousands of customers in New Mexico.

Businesses and agencies that affect public health and safety to be the priority for connections, the PRC commissioners said.

Qwest pulled the plug on SkyWi Inc. on Tuesday in a billing dispute that left businesses, consumers and government agencies and unable to operate. The PRC ordered Qwest to provide an estimate by 10 a.m. Friday of when all service would be restored.

The PRC also said it is considering an investigation into why SkyWi did not warn its customers of the pending service interruption. And it order SkyWi to allow any of its customers who want to change Internet service providers to do so without any repercussions.

Qwest claims it is owed $1.7 million for wholesale Internet access sold to SkyWi. SkyWi, which retails Internet and Internet-based telephone services to its customers, disputes that figure.

Earlier this month SkyWi  sued Qwest in federal court alleging the communications giant was engaged in anti-competitive practices and trying to put the smaller company out of business.  A Qwest spokesperson said the lawsuit is without merit and "at its heart it's disguised to avoid paying its obligations."

Regardless New Mexicans including individuals, banks, hospitals and other business that get Internet through SkyWi or subsidiaries One Connect and ZiaNet abruptly lost their connections.

"We lost our Internet and e- mail capabilities yesterday," Shannon Cox of Bank of the Rio Grande in Las Cruces told KRQE News 13. "All they had to do was inform us that there could be a problem other than just cutting us off like that."

While the fight is between Qwest communications and sky-wi inc., but the losers were customers and consumers. Businesses, 911 services near Roswell, government offices, health care providers and residents spread throughout New Mexico lost service at 3 a.m. Tuesday.

In the Carlsbad area no matter which Eddy County government number you dialed you couldn't get through. The 911 emergency numbers still worked, but other offices relied on VOIP, Voice Over Internet Protocol, provided by ZiaNet.

The outage affects SkyWi's 13,000 Internet and 5,400 phone customers in six states. Most of those customers are in New Mexico.

Qwest said it sent an e-mail to SkyWi on Monday saying it would be OK with a partial payment. Qwest said it shut off service when it didn't hear back from SkyWi.

SkyWi said it tried to negotiate a deal with Qwest to avoid service interruption until their January court date.

Frustrated customers calling SkyWi got this message: "Thank you for calling SkyWi. We are still experiencing heavy call volumes due to our issues with Qwest Communications. We are working to restore service as quickly as we can."

SkyWi is the largest independently owned and operated Internet service provider in New Mexico. Company officials did not reply to our e-mail from News 13 asking for comment.