The Best (and Worst) ISPs

Cable and DSL Champs

Not only did cable customers make up the largest proportion of our survey respondents--nearly 44 percent--they were also the most satisfied (along with their DSL counterparts; see "For Overall Satisfaction, Broadband Is King" below). More than 70 percent of subscribers to EarthLink cable, Cablevision, Time Warner's Road Runner unit, and Cox awarded their providers one of the two highest ratings for overall satisfaction. EarthLink cable and Cablevision also scored over 70 percent when we asked how likely readers were to recommend their ISP, and how satisfied they were with its download and upload speeds. By comparison, 61 percent of Comcast subscribers reported that they are satisfied with their service, and 58 percent would recommend it. Comcast is the largest cable access provider and the second-largest consumer ISP in the continental United States, behind AOL.

When it comes to satisfaction, DSL customers are close to their cable counterparts, and both camps are head and shoulders happier than dial-up and satellite Internet users. (Note that the survey recorded fewer than 50 respondents to any single satellite Internet service, so no satellite ISPs are included in the results.) Sixty-eight percent of DSL respondents said they were highly satisfied with their ISP, while only 50 percent of dial-up users did so.

More than half of the DSL customers of BellSouth, EarthLink DSL, Qwest, SBC Yahoo, and Verizon were content with their service and were highly likely to recommend it to others. Verizon subscribers were the most satisfied of the lot, with seven out of ten giving the company top marks in overall satisfaction, likeliness to recommend, and reliability. SBC Yahoo's customer rating was close behind: Two-thirds of SBC Yahoo users gave the service top marks in those three categories.

An Industry Grows Up

The shift to broadband continues, even though it has not yet hit the majority of U.S. households, according to Yankee Group analyst Patrick Mahoney. Even so, three-quarters of the respondents to our survey enjoy high-speed Internet access from their homes. The overwhelming majority subscribe to a DSL or cable access service from one of the telephone or cable companies that are now the chief providers of broadband access across the continental United States.

The typical urban home has more choices for fast and reliable Internet access. Residents of the ten largest U.S. cities can select from at least two high-speed services, and sometimes more--often at a discount when bundled with the customer's cable TV and/or telephone service. (See "Get Your Money's Worth" in this article to determine whether a discounted bundle makes sense for you.)

Since cable providers typically work as government-sanctioned monopolies, you rarely have a choice of cable Internet services. So, as you'd expect, the cable companies with the most reach--Cablevision, Comcast, and Cox Communications--have the most subscribers. The DSL world is different: Telephone companies may dominate the DSL industry, but usually more than one DSL provider serves a given area. (Among the DSL leaders are BellSouth, SBC Yahoo, and Verizon.) So for broadband, you can usually choose between a big cable provider and a DSL service from a large or small company.

For dial-up, most users have chosen America Online, EarthLink, or another premium brand, or they've turned to an under-$20-per-month provider such as NetZero or PeoplePC (owned by EarthLink), though hundreds of local dial-up Internet service providers exist as well.

Dial-up providers, not surprisingly, were at the bottom of the satisfaction ratings. AOL, which currently owns the largest share of the consumer Internet access market (23 percent of the total ISP market at the end of 2004, and 34.5 percent of the consumer dial-up market, according to research firm IDC), posted the lowest satisfaction ratings in our survey. NetZero, EarthLink's PeoplePC unit, and other discount dial-up providers fared slightly better, though they still ranked among the bottom third of all ISPs in overall satisfaction. Half of the respondents who use a dial-up service gave it top grades for overall satisfaction.