See Also
For an explanation of how we rank reviews, see our ratings criteria page.
by Editors of J.D. Power and Associates
J.D. Power is best known for its car satisfaction ratings, but for 11 years, the company has polled consumers about their satisfaction with their Internet service provider. This latest survey polled nearly… 17,000 ISP subscribers. Each ISP earns a score for overall satisfaction, performance and reliability, cost and image. (Image covers reputation, honesty and willingness to stand behind services once sold.) The broadband ratings are reported by region of the country, which makes this review especially useful. EarthLink and Verizon rank above average in all four regions but never earn a top spot.
by Eric Griffith
This survey is based on only about 6,000 broadband users, but the ratings are more detailed than those at J.D. Power, covering nine factors plus the likelihood of choosing the same ISP again. Overall… satisfaction is highest for Verizon Fiber (FTTP), followed by four highly rated cable providers. Indeed, cable edges out DSL providers when the overall scores for each group are averaged -- but only two cable providers score as well for low need for repairs. Ranking lowest on all factors is the satellite service HughesNet (formerly DirecWay).
by Jeff Bertolucci
This PC World customer-satisfaction survey of 6,463 readers is a year older than our other top reviews, but covers dial-up providers as well as broadband. The results are similar to those at J.D. Power and… -- for broadband -- at PC Magazine. Cablevision, Cox and EarthLink cable, which get above-average scores elsewhere, also do well here. Verizon's FiOS tops the rankings overall. EarthLink is the best dial-up service; others rate below average. AOL and Charter cable are the worst-rated providers.
by Jeremy A. Kaplan
PC Magazine created an applet that tests ISP speeds and tallied up the results. More than 40,000 site visitors from 162 countries downloaded the test, so the ratings aren't necessarily accurate for ISPs in… the United States. Only broadband is covered, and only speed is taken into account. Still, the chart provides some impressive comparisons. Fiber optic is by far the fastest, followed by the fastest cable providers. Some DSL providers (such as Seattle-based Speakeasy) are as fast, on average, as slower cable providers -- but fiber and cable have the edge.
by Editors of Consumer Reports
Although this review is about two years old, Consumer Reports also has an active forum where subscribers ask an expert editor questions about Internet service providers and other networking concerns. The… main report is based on a survey of over 34,000 Consumer Reports subscribers, who rate their ISP on speed, reliability and technical support. Included in the ratings chart are the results for 29 of the most popular cable, DSL, dial-up and satellite providers. There's also a section on how to choose the right type of ISP, plus a useful article on how to avoid getting trapped into unfortunate contracts.
by Preston Gralla
We rank this review of broadband ISPs lower because it's based on a smaller survey of only 1,163 readers of ComputerWorld.com, with enough information to rate only six ISPs. However, the article does… present interesting pie charts on overall satisfaction with various factors -- reporting, for example, that only eight percent of the respondents were really dissatisfied with their broadband service. Verizon FiOS earns first place here, as it does in other surveys. Cox cable ranks second, but quite a few other broadband providers aren't covered here.
by Contributors to BroadbandReports.com
by Contributors to Viewpoints.com
We rank this review site lower than the big survey reports simply because the ISP ratings published here are based on the experiences of so few owners. Still, the reviews here can be useful, and many are… reasonably current. The site is easy to use, since the list of ISPs shows their average ratings plus the number of reviews on which each average is based. You can filter the list by specific advantages that are important to you -- for example, download speed -- or by drawbacks you want to avoid. It's interesting to see that even the top-rated cable ISP ranks below four ISPs of other types, including two that cost much less.
by Editors of CNet.com
This chart lists the 20 ISPs most often checked at the CNet.com download speed checker, along with their average download speeds. An ISP's rank in popularity doesn't carry much weight, since it's based on… how many times its speed has been checked here, rather than on its actual market share or on users' ratings of it. Still, the chart has some limited value for comparing average speeds, and it's updated weekly. You can check the last four weeks to see if average speeds are trending up or down.
by Contributors to Consumer Reports
Though the Consumer Reports ratings of ISPs are available only by subscription, this Electronics Blog is free to all viewers. About two dozen ISP customers post comments about their experiences with… bundling Internet service with cable television, phone and other services. No consensus is reached, and it's important to keep regional and local variations in mind, but you may find some useful warnings here. Typically, dissatisfied customers talk more about their experiences than those who are satisfied, but clearly there are lots of pitfalls in signing up for bundled services.
by Contributors to Epinions.com
by Alex Goldman
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