US West was a public company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "USW" with headquarters at 1801 California Street in Denver, Colorado.

Its telephone properties maintained the US West name, while the remaining assets such as cable, wireless and international businesses became MediaOne.

US West's success in this endeavor was for multiple reasons which included their then-innovative use of "test-markets" for staggered roll-outs of new calling features in middle-sized cities such as Boise, Idaho; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Phoenix, Arizona before releasing them on a wider scale (they were the first communications provider to use this strategy called beta-testing, a term used for many years in the software development industry).

Their geographic presence featured telephone switching equipment that had been constructed fairly recent to the time frame, thereby requiring fewer upgrades.

Their service area was also experiencing population growth at a tremendous rate, tripling their subscriber-base in a short time and increasing revenues.

They were the first U.S. telco to upgrade their PSTN to electronic switching before 1990 and they were the first to offer residential and business ISDN and later, DSL services to their customers by 1997.

As a result of its rapid "bring-to-market" abilities and continued success in technological advancements, the company adopted the slogan "Life's better here."

While the company often claimed that subscriber demands were often greater than their ability to fulfill orders, many critics pointed to high profit margins, spending on bring-to-market technology and lackluster investment in customer support.

Qwest, MCI, and smaller competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) who had recently been allowed to offer local service within US West's service area (as a result of the Telecommunications Act of 1996) complained to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that US West was uncooperative in releasing their owned lines to these new companies.

The complaints alleged US West neglected or seriously delayed release of "bundled loops" as required by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, making it difficult for competitors to provide local telephone service to their customers.