[News] AT&T rated worst cell phone carrier for second year in a row

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http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-5...or-second-year-in-a-row/?tag=mncol;topStories

AT&T rated worst cell phone carrier for second year in a row
by Don Reisinger December 6, 2011 7:46 AM PST

AT&T might be huge and generating boatloads of cash every quarter, but when it comes to service, the carrier has a lot of work ahead of it.

For the second year in a row, AT&T was ranked last in Consumer Reports' annual customer satisfaction survey. The company was hit especially hard by complaints over poor voice service and phone-based customer care. Even worse for AT&T, the company's 2011 rating was slightly lower than last year's.

Consumer Reports' survey examines voice, data, and text-messaging service, as well as customer care. Consumer Reports asks that we not publish the actual ratings, in deference to its subscribers.

So, who fared best? Believe it or not, it wasn't a big carrier. Consumer Reports found that Consumer Cellular topped the list this year, followed closely by U.S. Cellular. Even Credo beat out the big four.

"Our survey indicates that subscribers to prepaid and smaller standard-service providers are happiest overall with their cell-phone service," Paul Reynolds, electronics editor for Consumer Reports, said in a statement. "However, these carriers aren't for everyone. Some are only regional, and prepaid carriers tend to offer few or no smart phones."

For major carriers, Verizon Wireless took the top spot in Consumer Reports' study, earning high marks for texting and data service. Sprint and T-Mobile followed with slightly lower scores. Last year, Verizon also ended atop the Consumer Reports survey with Sprint and T-Mobile following closely behind. However, all three companies saw their scores drop this year, compared to last year's figures.

AT&T's customer service troubles aren't solely a Consumer Reports finding. In July, the carrier earned the lowest score of 751 in a J.D. Power and Associates customer care study. Verizon Wireless took the top spot with a score of 770.

However, AT&T continues to add new customers to its service, despite its apparent service problems. In the third quarter alone, AT&T added 2.1 million new subscribers bringing its total customer base to over 100 million.

Consumer Reports surveyed 66,000 online subscribers for this year's study. The organization's full findings will be available in the Consumer Reports magazine's January 2012 issue.

AT&T did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comment on the Consumer Reports findings.
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Agreed, I would rate Consumer Reports lower than AT&T!

I have used AT&T for many years and have had nothing but good performance with their network. No dropped calls and full bars most the time.

If they were as bad as CR reported then they would not still be so big!:p
 
I know everyone has their own story or stories, but my personal experience has been that AT&T customer service is far better than Verizon's. Yes, my Verizon phone had better coverage in remote mountain areas, but for where I spend 99.8% of my time, my AT&T coverage is great!
 
El3ctronics said:
Consumer Reports is a joke and these ratings are worthless.
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Agreed I have been with at&t for almost 10 years now, actually started with Cingular then the merge, but never had a problem with customer service. I'm sure it's a person by person opinion but so far have always been taken care of. I have had activation fee and upgrade fee waived many times over the years without any problems. You want bad customer service you should try Sprint. That was a nightmare and I was so glad once my contract was up and able to get out. They're what drove me to go to Cingular in the first place. I sometime read about AT&T having this bad that bad on here and have not experience any of those.....so like I said its probably a person by person opinion.
 
These reports are interesting, but they don't really carry much weight aside from that.

Personally I've had nothing but good experience with AT&T myself, ever since I switched from the 3G to the 3GS. (Before that, it wasn't so great and I often wanted to switch to VZW.) If anyone locally asked me which carrier to choose for their brand new 4S, I'd say AT&T. I also happen to be an AT&T employee, so I come across a LOT of people who for one reason or another are dissatisfied with the service, and there's really nothing that can be done to change that.

As with anything, there are those who love it and those who hate it. If you love it, stick with it. If not, switch to something else.
 
I'm not sure how it's possible that Consumer Cellular (Verizon MVNO) or CREDO wireless (Sprint MVNO) can rate better than the carriers they're reselling minutes off of. The network characteristics are the same.

The only explanation is that CR isn't accounting for the "warm, fuzzy feeling" effect. CREDO caters to left-leaning activists and activist-wannabes and love to flood their subscribers' inboxes with e-mails about what those big, bad major carriers are doing, and how much money they give to right-wing politicians (ignoring that they tend to give about as much to the democrats, too... whoever will give them what they want) and how you're helping the world be a better place by giving CREDO your money.

And Consumer Cellular focuses on individuals who don't want to deal with those newfangled smartphone thingamajigs and hard-to-read contracts. AARP members get additional discounts, which is a huge tell (not to dis AARP members, but their marketing angle -true or not- is that certain "active adults" don't want to fuss with those sorts of things).

So, by definition, we're not getting an objective analysis here. The MVNOs that rate high are the ones who market based on affinity, and if you sign up with them because you have warm, fuzzy feelings about the service, then it's all based on perception. And right now, everyone loves to hate the big carriers, AT&T especially.

I've also had no major issues with AT&T where I live and work. I did experience firsthand that Southern California has coverage issues, but that was a couple years ago, I could still make and receive, calls and I was able to get data, albeit slow. And it's been a far better experience on AT&T than I had on Sprint, which is CREDO's underlying carrier.
 
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I had literally 100's of dropped calls on Verizon. They gave me a code to dial when a call dropped. After a month, I called customer service to ask what they had found and they told me to leave and go to AT&T. Canceled my contract so I could leave.

After 8 years I am totally satisfied with AT&T. Consumer Reports has always been a joke.
 
Thanks for the posts! Was wondering - looking to upgrade my phone (on T-Mobile right now... ;) ).
 
I don't even bother reading stuff that says AT&T is the "worst carrier". Why? Because I have them and know the truth. I have only had one issue and that was resolved quickly. Other than that, never had an issue. Customer service is far superior than Verizon (who I had before). They are easier to deal with and their web interface is much nicer.

Verizon has the WORST CS I have ever experienced.
 
I called customer service to ask what they had found and they told me to leave and go to AT&T
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this sounds like a gross misquote of what the sales rep actually told you.
 
All carriers have their issues. Before hopping on a family plan on At&t I was using a nextel phone and it was painful. I'm happy now with At&t.
 
ggmissmolly said:
I had literally 100's of dropped calls on Verizon. They gave me a code to dial when a call dropped. After a month, I called customer service to ask what they had found and they told me to leave and go to AT&T. Canceled my contract so I could leave.
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After I moved 4 years ago I had a lot of issues with Verizon's service at my new home, basically the same thing happened for me - and Verizon canceled my contract without penalty so I could move to AT&T. I was definitely pleased that they didn't make me stick with them in an area of poor service, or make me pay an ETF. The way your post is phrased it sounds like you were not happy with how they handled the situation; personally I was very grateful about it.
 
It's because they hire 3rd party vendors to handle customer service. With no planning, no organization, every rep just transfers customers to different departments. What's funny is AT&T tries to make it seamless and appear like one team however that's not the case.
 
You want a better ranking than Consumer Reports? I travel a LOT and I've been on the 4 major carriers in the US. Take my opinion with a grain of salt but this is how I'd rate them:

Service:
  1. Verizon
  2. AT&T
  3. T-Mobile
  4. Sprint

Customer Service:
  1. T-Mobile
  2. AT&T
  3. Sprint
  4. Verizon
 
I can say the only problem I have with Verizon is that inside some buildings the data drops. But call quality is the best and in like three years I've dropped no more than 2-3 calls. Before I had AT&T and I would drop at least 4-5 on a weekly basis... I just don't know why calls drop so much with AT&T...
 
"this sounds like a gross misquote of what the sales rep actually told you."

No, it's not a misquote. In fact there were news reports that carriers (especially Verizon) were asking customers to leave if they had too many customer service calls. Once I could not make a 911 call that was serious. Virtually every call I made for 6 months was dropped at least one time and they cancelled my contract after telling me to move on.

Yes, I was happy they cancelled me so I could get better service. They only did that after I threatened to sue them for breach of contract because they could not supply service that anyone would consider acceptable. Verizon is awful where I live and the complaints about ATT are related to where those customers live. That's just how it is.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

I disrespectfully disagree with consumer report's claim(s). I was not one of the 66,000 or so people surveyed.

Sprint is trash!!! This sums it up right here: "iPhone 4S on [Sprint's] 3G data network too slow to be useful."
Even worse for me is that my iPhone 4S stays on that circle, rarely ever on 3G. I miss my AT&T service with my ability to talk & surf and have endless people on one call.

Verizon is overpriced. AT&T is just right, in that "Goldilocks zone". Sprint is cheap, and their horrible service is proof that you get what you pay for.

The only issue(s) I had with AT&T was their dropped calls, and 2GB data cap.

I say avoid sprint at all costs, but I wonder if their iPhone 5 will be useful? Will they have 4G by the time iPhone 5 comes? Is there any hope for Sprint and future iPhones relative to speed? I'm also tired of Siri telling me she can't do nothing!
 
I'm personally really satisfied with Sprint. Never a dropped called and I consistently pull down 1.2-1.8Mbps(which for a CDMA network is great).

Now AT&T for me personally, is total crap. Complete and utter crap. AT&T can go die in a hole for all I care! When I can't hold a call in a major metro area like SF or Seattle for a few minutes and CONTINUALLY have to redial my call, there's an issue there. I might not have HSPA+ service, but at least I can actually use my phone AS A PHONE :eek:

Especially in Seattle, my girlfriend is still on AT&T and trying to talk to her half the time is a joke. Either she's breaking up or the call just flat out drops, multiple times. AT&T needs to get their act together. I can't justify paying them more money for sub-par service in my case.
 
Stealthipad said:
Agreed, I would rate Consumer Reports lower than AT&T!

I have used AT&T for many years and have had nothing but good performance with their network. No dropped calls and full bars most the time.

If they were as bad as CR reported then they would not still be so big!:p
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Yup. AT&T is the best carrier in Eastern CT, they have the fastest iPhone, the fastest network, and their corporate retail stores are excellent, they seem to be able to fix about anything. Consumer Reports has no clue what they are talking about with technology. Example was the iPhone 4, which had the signal issue that could be reproduced only when you took the iPhone out of it's case. They didn't recommend it because of an issue that can only occur when you artificially create the conditions for it. Sheesh. I'm not an Apple fanboy, I think there are a lot of reasons the iPhone sucked before iOS 5, and even more so before 4, but the antenna issue wasn't one of them.
 
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