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Consumers are a wee bit happier, on the average, with Internet service providers, but that’s not to say happy, according to the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) telecommunications company rankings. Overall, Internet service providers get an average score of 64 (out of 100), up one point from 2016. It is the lowest industry average of all those ranked by ACSI. Subscription TV companies – there’s quite a bit of overlap, of course – are nearly as bad on the average, getting 65 out of 100. By comparison, mobile phone companies get a 71, and consumer electronics manufacturers and full service restaurants share the top spot at 82.
Verizon’s fiber to the home customers are the happiest of all, rating their satisfaction at 73, up five points from last year. From there, though, it is bleak. AT&T drops five points to 64, Comcast is three points better at 59 and Frontier slides five points to the bottom of the ISP rankings at 56. The survey was completed before Frontier took over 2 million Verizon customers in California.
That also means it happened before Charter, Time Warner and Bright House merged together. All three companies are up from last year, scoring 63, 66 and 67 respectively. It’ll be interesting to see how the new combined company rates in 2017. ACSI cautions that “mergers tend to cause customer satisfaction to deteriorate, at least in the short term”.
Consumers are the least satisfied with their ISP’s customer service, choice of plans and delivered speed, including video streaming quality; all those factors rate 69 out of 100 or worse.