If there’s one thing we love more than technology, it’s hearing how technology is helping people improve their lives. I came across one particular study that made us very proud of the product we deliver – high-speed Internet service is fueling the search for jobs.  

According to a study from the Phoenix Center[1], high-speed Internet-use makes it less likely for job-seekers to give up their search by more than 50 percent. It also made it easier for people who don’t have a car, or people who have similar constraints, to look for employment.  

You can see the NPR report on the study here. 

Not only can your high-speed Internet connection reduce the costs of searching for a job, I know many people who are using Webinars to beef up their skill-set, using online tools to organize and track their leads, even finding online communities that can help them get connected to the right people. Then, once they find a hot lead, they visit Web sites that offer interview tips, resume-building tools and other helpful advice for not only finding a job, but landing one. Yeah: I know some very resourceful people.

Has your Qwest High-Speed Internet service helped you or someone you know find a job? Or do you know any Web sites that have helped you in your search? We’d love to hear your story.  

~TechnoMonica  

Happy 2010! We took a bit of a break, but for good reason – we’re working on some very cool plans for the new year. Let’s kick it off by giving you a sneak peek, shall we? 

First, if you followed CES (the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas), then you know that almost everything in your home will be connected to the Internet - TVs, game consoles, set-top boxes, microwaves (okay, maybe not microwaves…yet). But the fact is that it can be a little intimidating. This year, you’ll see some announcements that will make integrating your technology easier and beneficial – imagine being able to spend more time enjoying technology and less time figuring out what connects to what. 

Support will be another priority this year – not only tech support (which we already offer 24/7), but a more comprehensive support system that includes security and protection. That’s a little vague, I know, but stay tuned – it’ll be interesting. 

And finally, how could I talk about the new year without mentioning our fiber-optic-fast Internet? We’ll continue to build out our faster speeds – we’re now offering speeds up to 40 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream in certain areas – and we announced that we were approaching 3 million potential customers at the end of 2009. More to come this year! As always, if you want to find out if this service is in your area, check out our support forums here.

We’re looking forward to a new year with cool, new things to talk about, so please keep checking back for the latest and greatest. 

~TechnoMonica

Gift list: Check. Web sites loaded: Check. Coffee: Always checked. All systems go for Cyber Monday. 

If you’re opting out of the Black Friday 4 a.m. wake up calls, mall crowds and parking lots, but still after holiday bargains, the spike in online shopping the Monday after Thanksgiving – yes, Cyber Monday – probably represents you.  But instead of requiring you to get into your car and fighting crowds all day, Cyber Monday asks only one thing of you – an Internet connection.  

Obviously, a fast and reliable Qwest High-Speed Internet® connection is our suggestion, but here are some other suggestions for your online shopping extravaganza: 

• Safety first: protect against hackers and other schemes by securing your wireless settings and your firewall settings, updating your anti-virus and anti-malware software (Qwest High-Speed Internet customers receive anti-virus protection at no additional charge), going directly to official Web sites instead of clicking on links and only visiting Web sites you trust. Don’t forget to fully log off of secure sites.
• Make your list and check it…well, you know: have your gift list written out in front of you and organize based on product type, like electronics, home furnishing, clothing, toys, etc., so you don’t have to jump back and forth between store Web sites.
• Lock and load your Web sites: organize the Web sites you plan on visiting based on how you organize your gift list.
• Pay to play: however you plan to pay for your purchases, whether credit card, debit card or gift cards, have them ready and in front of you. Be sure to check future statements for double or wrong charges.

Lots of savings out there, and even we are getting on the bandwagon. Qwest is holding its first Cyber Sale…but we couldn’t wait till Monday.  

Starting Friday, Nov. 27 and going through Dec. 1, qwest.com shoppers who purchase Qwest High-Speed Internet with Windows Live 7 Mbps speed tier or higher will be rewarded with a $50 check. No form to fill out and they’ll receive their check automatically – pretty sweet. Visit www.qwest.com/cybersale for details. 

Happy shopping! 

~TechnoMonica

We’ve had a lot of activity in our forums and now we want to focus on bringing more activity here to the Qwest Internet Online Community blog. We’ve got a lot to cover, but we also want to talk about what YOU want to talk about. What interests you in the world of high-speed Internet? The speed trends? Home networking? Cloud computing? Let us know!

Let’s kick it off with something we’re pretty sure is important to you: protecting your digital life.

When you think valuables, you might think of cash, jewelry, electronics or other items. Trust me on this one – when you see the blue screen of death for the first time, the word “valuables” quickly evolves to include music files, photos of once-in-a-lifetime trips and documents you (mistakenly) thought you’d never miss.

These days, we’re storing more value on our computers than we may realize. Well, we might realize it…when it’s too late.

After the computer crashes, the CD-ROM breaks or the coffee has already spilled on the external hard-drive, then we realize. After a likely emotional response (or, in my case, a near-meltdown), we ask ourselves “why didn’t I just back up my stuff?”

Well, we’re trying to help you avoid this kind of situation in a couple ways:

1.) By offering free 2GB of automatic online backup space to Qwest High-Speed Internet® customers (more space is available for purchase, too – pricing and other information can be found at www.qwest.com/digitalvault)

2.) By raising awareness about the importance of backing up with our new social media contest “Crash Happens,” which you can check out at www.winwithqwest.com

The contest encourages people to share their stories of data loss so others will take the time to back up…think: ghosts of “computer crash” future. It’s not too late to back up, but if you wait, you might end up singing the same sad song.

There are also some very cool prizes that will go to the most compelling stories – so if you’ve had the misfortune of losing data, you can upload your own video, photo or blog that tells the story. You might gain from your data loss.

Or, you can help select the winners by reviewing, voting and sharing your favorite entries.

Whatever you do, just make sure you back up.

~TechnoMonica

There are mixed messages going around about Qwest’s policy and approach to excessive use of our Internet network. While less than .002 percent of Qwest High-Speed Internet customers are impacted by our policy, we’d like to clarify a few points. 

First and foremost, Qwest does not block any lawful Internet traffic and does not use rate-limiting or throttling to enforce its excessive use policy. We want to be clear about that.  

It is our responsibility to deliver the best Internet experience to all of our Qwest High-Speed Internet customers, which is why we have to make sure we manage it properly. This is why the subscriber agreement that all Qwest High-Speed Internet customers agree to outlines the excessive use policy, which you can read at:

http://www.qwestservice.com/legal/highspeedinternetsubscriberagreement/files/Broadband_Subscriber_Agreement_ENG_v13_111907.pdf  

The policy says that customers agree to not use Qwest’s broadband network excessively. So, what does “excessively” mean? 

Qwest equates “excessive” to:

• 300,000-500,000 photo downloads in one month
• 40,000 to 80,000 typically sized MP3 music downloads in one month
• 15+ million unique e-mails each month
• Online TV video streaming of 1,000-3,000 30-minute shows each month
• 2-5 million Web page visits (approximately one every second, 24 hours per day) 

These examples are approximately hundreds of times the normal use.  If a customer does achieve this level of usage (clearly, difficult to do), he or she will know. Qwest will contact the customer several times, in different ways, and we will work closely with the customer to help reduce usage or migrate to a more appropriate service designed to meet his or her high-bandwidth needs.  

Online activities and Internet use is constantly evolving – we know that. As a broadband company, we want customers to use and enjoy their Internet, and it’s our job to deliver the best Internet experience we can.

- Travis

Qwest Product Director

I stumbled upon a site the other day that posted a recent study by Pew Internet & American Life Project. 

http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Cloud.Memo.pdf[1]

The study states that 69% of Internet users are invoking Cloud Computing applications today, meaning they use some kind of Web-based application like webmail, photo-sharing sites or other Web-based software.

Wow, really? 69%? That seems high. But, as you dive into the broad scale adoption of webmail and the proliferation of photo-sharing sites, that number makes more sense.

In the study, Ray Ozzie of Microsoft says that cloud computing would enable “a personal mesh of devices – a means by which all of your devices are brought together, managed through the web as a seamless whole.” Sounds pretty good. Anytime, anywhere access to what you want, how you want it.

But there was an even more interesting result from the study — only 5% of Internet users are using the Cloud to backup files and their hard-drive online. The majority uses Cloud Computing applications, signaling a need and value, yet only 5% use the Cloud for backup applications? Why is this number so low in the US?

The low percentage is certainly not for an absence of solutions. There are bunch of companies out there offering online backup services. Today, you can add another – Qwest. We’ve partnered up with Symantec, a trusted name in computer security, to bring our high-speed Internet customers Qwest Personal Digital Vault™. It’s pretty straight forward: 2GB FREE to all Qwest High-Speed Internet® customers, and there are pay tiers available for those that need more.

So, why would Qwest offer a service that seems to be readily available today? I think the real question is; if the solutions are so readily available, why isn’t anyone using them?

There’s a great lead-in statement in one of the studies sections: “Cloud users to Providers: let’s keep the data between us.” I think this is the issue. It’s about trust. For online backup to become more mainstream, Internet users have to trust the Cloud and, in turn, move their valuable content into the cloud.

Did we just revolutionize Cloud Computing? Hardly. But, we do believe in it, and we believe that customers trust us, our network and Symantec. With our network and datacenter investments, our ability to support the advancement of Cloud Computing and user adoption is in our wheelhouse.

Today we took another step. I am looking forward to tomorrow.

- Scott Russell

Qwest Product Director 

Happy New Year! For some of us, nothing kicks off a new year like the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. This year, we’re excited about the buzz at the event, what it means for the future, for you and for Qwest.

One of the big stories we saw at CES this year was the convergence of the Internet and TV and the products that bring the two together.

Qwest believes that the Internet is the backbone of this trend. In fact, the New York Times article “To Connect to the Internet, Just Turn on Your TV,” (Jan. 11, 2009) said, “If there was one overarching theme from the Consumer Electronics Show here last week, it was that absolutely every device in our lives is becoming a computer connected to the Internet.”

Some of the TV innovations that are incorporating Internet connectivity include:

• the ability to stream HD movies directly into your home via your Internet connection with embedded movie-rental and download capabilities into TVs;
• an Internet set-top device that allows viewers to watch online video on their TV screen instead of their computer
• a device that will let you watch what is on your DVR at home on a computer across the country.

As the trend toward Internet and TV integration continues, the same New York Times article predicted that “increasingly what will differentiate one TV from another is the software it runs and the Internet services it connects to.”

We agree – and with our Fiber-Optic Fast Internet and reliable network, we believe that Qwest is poised to deliver the Internet experience needed to power these innovations.   

Did any online community members attend CES? Where do you see the trends going?

- Travis Leo

Product Director, Qwest High-Speed Internet