Qwest answers Minn. call for outsourced voice services

Qwest Communications International Inc. of Denver has won a two-year, $22 million contract from Minnesota for voice services.

The contract has options, worth $44 million, for up to four years. If all options are exercised, the contract would be worth $66 million over six years, said Vince Hancock, a company spokesman.

Under the contract announced Monday, Qwest will deliver Centron, a Centrex service, to more than 2,600 locations throughout Minnesota.

Centron is a managed, outsourced, business telephone service that is leased to businesses instead of them buying or leasing their own on-premise phone system. Centron is a single-line telephone service with numerous features, such as call waiting, call forwarding and call transfer.

Qwest Communications, a provider of voice, video and data services, has more than 50,000 employees and annual sales of $15.4 billion, according to Hoover's Online of Austin, Texas.