ISP Review

ISP reliability and costs

ConsumerSearch has two reports on Internet service providers; this report on ISPs covers home Internet service. Our separate report covers mobile broadband. This type of service uses the existing network of cell-phone towers to provide an Internet connection to your laptop anywhere there's cell-phone coverage.

Choosing an Internet service provider (ISP) is a lot like choosing a cell-phone service -- availability, reliability and quality of service vary from one geographic region to another -- sometimes even within the same metro area. The same ISP can have high ratings in one area, while earning dire complaints in another. This makes individual customer-written reviews useful only if they cover the ISP as it functions in your specific area.

Accordingly, massive customer surveys are one of the best ways to evaluate Internet service providers, especially if, like J.D. Power and Associates, they report results by geographic region. The most recent J.D. Power survey, done in July 2008, polled nearly 17,000 residential ISP subscribers, of whom about 75 percent used cable or DSL broadband. Each year this survey reports a decline in the use of dial-up ISPs -- the least expensive but slowest type of Internet connection. Cable ISPs are gaining more subscribers than DSL.

Other big surveys are also useful in evaluating not only customer satisfaction, but also connection speed and other specific factors. PC Magazine's survey doesn't rate ISPs by geographic area, but covers nine different factors; another review there compares ISP speeds. The survey at PC World covers fewer respondents, but includes dial-up ISPs as well as broadband. So does Consumer Reports, whose report is based on a survey of more than 34,000 subscribers but is becoming outdated.

As of the third quarter of 2008, Comcast -- the dominant cable broadband company -- had nearly tied AT&T's combined DSL, satellite Internet and fiber-optic Internet services for market share. Another cable company, Road Runner, ranks third in market share. Reviews say these dominant players aren't necessarily your best choice, however. For your geographic area or main areas of travel, other ISPs may get better ratings.

For example, dial-up ISP America Online (AOL) still claims over twice the market share of EarthLink, but surveys consistently rank EarthLink much higher for customer satisfaction. Similarly, though Comcast is the largest cable ISP, it's rated below average in all four regions by respondents in the latest J.D. Power survey. Although Verizon's fiber-optic Internet service, FiOS, gets generally high ratings, the Consumer Reports Electronics Blog publishes some irate complaints from FiOS subscribers in certain geographic areas. Satellite Internet service, no matter what the provider, continues to get the lowest ratings for satisfaction.