Survey Ranks AT&T Lowest Among Mobile Phone Providers
Survey Ranks AT&T Lowest Among Mobile Phone Providers
Posted 12/07/2010 at 6:55am
| by Paul Lilly
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Apple couldn't have picked a worse wireless carrier to enter into an exclusivity agreement to carry the iPhone, and we mean that literally, at least according to a new survey by Consumer Reports.
The consumer advocate group pinged more than 58,000 ConsumerReports.org subscribers about their cell phone carriers, and it was AT&T that scored the worst for overall satisfaction, dropping "significantly" from one year ago. And get this -- more than half of the AT&T customers surveyed were iPhone owners. In fact, Consumer Reports points out that "iPhone owners were much less satisfied with their carrier and rated data service (Web and email) lower than owners of smartphones on other carriers that, like the iPhone, have a host of apps to encourage heavy data use."
Where there's smoke there's usually fire, and there has been a ton of smoke signals saying the iPhone is headed to Verizon. If AT&T wasn't worried before, it should be now. Verizon ranked second among all mobile phone service providers, trailing U.S. Cellular for the top spot.
"Our survey suggests that an iPhone from Verizon Wireless, which is rumored, could indeed be good news for iPhone fans," said Paul Reynolds, Electronics Editor for Consumer Reports.
The survey also touched on the topic of bill shock with one in five respondents saying they've received an unexpectedly high cell phone bill in the previous year, usually for exceeding their plan's voice, text, or data limits.
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davzway
December 12, 2010 at 11:39am
All of the different cell phone providers like AT&, Verizon, Sprint, TMobile, etc have problems with people doing Bad Things to customers for a variety of reasons. There are also differences between the Carrier's coverage in different locations... one Carrier is on Top in one area and conversely at the bottom in another area. What sets one Carrier apart from another, is HOW they deal with a problem when it comes up with a customer. Verizon store manager lied, along with employees making a commission on selling products even when they had no chance of working where I lived. It took time (over a year) and some arguing BUT Verizon cut a check and paid for unused service and MADE IT RIGHT. Have no problems using Verizon again in the future. Sprint on the other hand will NEVER see another dollar from me again, not EVER even if the only service available. Stemming from Circuit City selling a phone, discounted for signing for a year with Sprint. Two weeks later phone is dead. Sprint meanwhile has dropped Circuit City as a seller so all Circuit City could do is refund the original purchase price leaving me with a contract with Sprint. Manager of main Sprint store in area.. refused to sell the same phone or Any phone at a discounted price, forcing me to pay full RETAIL for their phone. Honored my part staying with Sprint for a year, then pounded the phone into small pieces and returned to Sprint's store. Moral, do research on phones.. do research on service which works.. even using a pay as you go cheap phone for a couple of months will tell you IF the Carrier has good service in your area. Then buy a good phone with TWO year contract. just MHO davway
mesiah
December 08, 2010 at 1:38am
Sprint pulls even with Verizon... who could have predicted that? 10 years ago you couldn't pay people to stay with sprint, I know, I was one of those people. But now, 10 years later, extremely high rates and some bad customer service have driven me away from Verizon and back to Sprint. And what did I find? Sprint is like a completely different company now. Their service is excelent, and in my area coverage is great (we even got 4g last week.) Most of all, the price is fantastic. 2 phones, unlimited data, unlimited texts, and unlimited calls to and from any mobile phone for $130 a month. When I signed up for that plan it would have cost me over $200 for the same thing from Verizon. I wasn't sure about returning to sprint, but now that I have I haven't looked back for a second.
GreenTurtle
December 07, 2010 at 5:59pm
If At&t didn't have the excusivity rights to the iphone, then they would lose a ton of customers. Wow, that will hurt.
jmb12177
December 07, 2010 at 12:58pm
dosent it seem odd to anyone that over half of the complaits were from iphone users, I wonder what other smartphone users (android and blackberry) think. how many iphone users could be blaming att for the iphone's problems. I use a blackberry, and my wife has a samsung captivate (an android phone) we have been with att for close to 8 years, never had a problem. and here where i live i get better servive, that always works for me, even when friends on verizion have poor singal.
arosadler
December 07, 2010 at 10:36am
I love US Cellular, and hope they grow into a larger player. I get unlimited incoming calls, mobile-to-mobile, and nights and weedends. And they notify me when I get close to my limits on voice and data. Now if they would just get a new Windows Phone 7...
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