CenturyLink, Cox work it out over Qwest buy

Cox Communications has agreed to drop its opposition to the merger of CenturyLink and Qwest Communications, CenturyLink said this week, after the companies agreed on new conditions for Cox’s existing wholesale interconnection deal with Qwest in Arizona and Nebraska.

The Federal Communications Commission, and at least nine states still need to approve the merger, which was announced in April 2009, but with this week’s Cox agreement, the deal remains on track to close in the first half of 2011. About a dozen states have approved the deal, as well as the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, the Communications Workers of America, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and the shareholders of both companies.

Cox also competes with Qwest for voice customers, and recently beat the telco in a J.D. Power & Associates residential voice customer satisfaction survey. The agreement with Cox means that the company acknowledges the merger is in the public interest and should be approved by Arizona and Nebraska regulatory bodies. It is similar to an agreement reached with another Qwest interconnection customer, Integra Telecom.