AT&T Fares Poorly in 'Consumer Reports' Ratings
Of all the carriers rated, AT&T was the only one to drop significantly in overall satisfaction.
Over half of the survey respondents who used AT&T as a carrier owned some version of the iPhone, the Apple smart phone that is exclusive to AT&T, at least for now. Consumer Reports data, reflecting all versions of the phone, found that iPhone owners were much less satisfied with their carrier and rated data service (Web and e-mail) lower than owners of smart phones on other carriers that, like the iPhone, have a host of apps to encourage heavy data use.
In the 2009 survey, AT&T was at the bottom of the list locally, but came in next-to-last nationally. This time, it brings up the rear nationwide, and in every city in which Consumer Reports surveyed its readership. The magazine even calls out AT&T's shortcomings on its cover with a snarky blurb:
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Best & worst providers
(Sorry, AT&T)
Among handsets, the iPhone 4 tied with the Samsung Captivate as the highest-rated handset on AT&T's network. Consumer Reports has notably refused to recommend the iPhone 4 due to antenna issues that received considerable publicity in the weeks after the device's launch.
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In other news, the sky is reported to be . . . blue. Also, late breaking news from Alaska: it's cold there.
I'm guessing (hoping??) that when Verizon gets the iphone, their scores will even out a bit. Verizon's will go down (heavy increased traffic) and AT&T's might got up a bit because of a lightened load.
More than half of the AT&T respondents were iPhone users. I’m sure there are still some network capacity issues yet I bet more than a few of the respondents wanted to make a “statement” regarding exclusivity by clobbering AT&T in this survey. It would be interesting to see the survey results if you could take away the iPhone users.
Next year’s survey will become more meaningful when we can compare iPhone users on multiple carriers. (IE…how does a Verizon iPhone user compare with an AT&T iPhone user, T-Mobile, Sprint, etc).
In fact, Consumer reports should compare the same cell phones on various networks to get a “like for like” result. What’s the point of comparing a network full of voice/text users with a network that carries most of the wireless internet traffic?
My own editorial comment: for some reason, Consumer Reports has an “issue” with large and successful companies (Apple/AT&T).
Plus do they rate real know subscribers or just rate anyone and all the AT&T haters who want the iPhone say they suck?
do we really need a study to tell us AT&T sucks?
We actually do. Many an AT&T sucks threads have been made, only to be invaded by AT&T fanboys saying that it all depends on your local and that they have been with AT&T 20 years without a single dropped call.
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