AT&T ranked worst US carrier again by Consumer Reports

Consumer Reports has released its latest survey of US wireless customers, revealing once again that AT&T scores the worst in customer satisfaction, repeating its last place ranking from the previous year. And once again, of the four major US wireless carriers, Verizon takes the top spot.

The satisfaction survey is based on feedback from more than 66,000 Consumer Reports subscribers with both standard and no-contract providers. The most satisfied customers actually came from smaller lesser known carriers with Consumer Cellular ranking first followed by U.S. Cellular and Credo.

However, Consumer Reports editor Paul Reynolds suggests that the overall high consumer satisfaction with the smaller regional carriers may be due to those consumers demanding less. Reynolds says that although satisfaction is high, these carriers are not for everyone as some are only regional and do not offer much in smartphone selection if any.

Hence, those requiring faster data speeds, broader coverage, and better phones are also likely to be more demanding of their network providers and more keen at finding faults. Of the big four, Verizon leads with the best performance in 4G data speeds and call reliability. And although AT&T ranks last, it does provide the best data speeds in areas where it has solid coverage.

[via Wired]