Among the top four US wireless carriers, Verizon is the best, according to this year’s annual satisfaction survey by Consumer Reports magazine. AT&T, well, not so much.
For the second year in a row, AT&T has scored the lowest among all major US wireless carriers, with particularly bad scores in the value, voice and phone departments, which were derived from a survey of more than 66,000 Consumer Reports subscribers. AT&T also scored poorly in the data category, and received no score higher than average in any category.
Verizon, which took the top spot among the national wireless carriers, scored particularly well in the texting, data and staff knowledge departments, but still received a less-than-exemplary score for value — i.e. Verizon is expensive, as any of its customers already know all too well.
Sprint came in a close second, with no score in any category under average. In fact, Sprint earned an average score in all of the seven categories, save data, for which it scored highly. T-Mobile fared far worse, with less-than-average scores in value, voice and phone, and average scores in the texting, data, staff knowledge and issue resolved categories.
While Verizon and Sprint will surely use this survey to tout their superiority, they still scored far worse than some smaller carriers. The true No. 1 carrier, according to Consumer Reports readers, is Consumer Cellular, which is based in Digital Trends’ hometown of Portland, Oregon. A very close second is US Cellular, which received the highest rating in all categories, except value, for which it received the next-highest rating. Verizon’s true rating is No. 4, according to this list.
Additionally, prepaid users ranked their service higher, on average, than customers who pay on-contract.
“Our survey indicates that subscribers to prepaid and smaller standard-service providers are happiest overall with their cell-phone service,” said Paul Reynolds, electronics editor for Consumer Reports. “However, these carriers aren’t for everyone. Some are only regional, and prepaid carriers tend to offer few or no smartphones. The major carriers are still leading options for many consumers, and we found they ranged widely in how well they satisfied their customers.”
Agree with these rankings? Let us know what you think, dear Digital Trend reader, in the comments.
[Image via William Perugini/Shutterstock]
Why is it that Tracfone, who according to the same survey did as well as Consumer Cellular, and also makes use of AT&T’s network, is ommitted from this article. The reason I mention it, is that it highlights a disparity in the report’s credibility: Same network gets vividly different results, the only difference being the difference in price the two different subscribers pay.
I have to laugh at the top 3 that are ranked. I have never heard of them, and after doing research it looks like they are all in rural areas.
This is simple math: The larger you are, the harder it is to scale customer service. My questions is: Why would anyone want to use those top three carriers? If you live in any metro area, you are going to use ATT, Verizon, Sprint or TMobile.
I think it is more to do with customer service, than actual services rendered. AT&T is horrible in that aspect. They have no idea what is going on. I sometimes thought that they didn’t know they were a wireless provider. I live in a country area. Very little service between the two. I switched from AT&T to Verizon pretty much to get on my wifes plan. Coverage is exactly the same… Maybe slightly better with Verizon…
But, customer service is without a doubt +1 to Verizon, -10 to AT&T.
What a hole! Consumer Reports has been irreparably biased for years! Their ratings are absolutely meaningless.
Do not agree with the survey. My wife uses T-Mobile and she has no problems with the voice part of it. Data seems a bit slow. I use At&t (switched from verizon) and have had no problems at all except a few dropped calls. The data speed are the best at At&t and i love using my iphone on it. I feel sorry to say that Consumer Reports are no longer consumer based but more like marketing tools. Whoever pays gets the no1 spot. The survery also contradicts technical reports published by 3rd party comapnies which measure network quality and data speeds.
Data is slow because T-Mobile caps your download speed once you hit a certain threshold of data usage.