Qwest announced on Thursday that new customers in six states could receive deep discounts on its Qwest Home Entertainment bundle of telephone, satellite TV and broadband DSL service, with monthly prices as low as $77.97 for 12 months.

New Qwest customers in Colorado, Washington, Minnesota, Arizona, Oregon and Utah can receive the Qwest Home Entertainment bundle package, which includes Qwest Choice DSL Deluxe with MSN Premium, DirecTV service, and Qwest home telephone service with unlimited long distance, for prices ranging from $77.97 to $87.97 per month for between 12 and 15 months, depending on the state.

“We’re doing this in certain markets to compete heavily with the cable operators,” said Stephanie Copeland, Qwest vice president of product marketing. . . .

Comcast charges $112.89 for a similar package of phone service, high-speed Internet and cable TV, spokeswoman Cindy Parsons said. — Associated Press

Qwest provides local telephone service within most of 14 Midwest, Rocky Mountain and Pacific Northwest states. It faces especially tough competition in places such as Nebraska and Colorado, where cable operators such as Comcast threaten its dominance in local telephone service. For instance, Comcast has 700,000 customers in Colorado, and in Omaha, Nebr., Qwest is no longer the largest local telephone carrier.