There's a battle raging in Washington, D.C., over whether to classify broadband internet service as a telecom service subject to strict regulation or an information service that doesn't require the same level of oversight from the FCC. One thing there's little debate about, though, is that we all want fast, reliable, and cheap internet service in our homes. At this point, broadband is as necessary as electricity.
This month's PCMag Readers' Choice Survey gave you the chance to rate your satisfaction with the internet service providers (ISPs) delivering broadband—and often a variety of other services—to your home. In general, you're a pretty tough crowd to please. Each year, ISPs increase the speed of our connections—according to the FCC, average speeds improved 22 percent last year—but invariably, ISP satisfaction ratings are among the lowest we see across all the categories of products and services you rate for us each year.
It's easy to see why. Broadband service isn't cheap. For many, the cost is well over $1,000 a year. Second, fast is rarely fast enough. Even as the bandwidth of our connections has increased, so has our demand for more. Streaming video services such as YouTube and Netflix are incredibly popular and getting a smooth high-definition stream requires a big, fat internet pipe into our home.
For example, Netflix tells customers they need a steady connection of 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) or faster to stream 4K video. Lots of ISPs can sustain that speed for one connection, but most homes have multiple PCs, TVs, tablets, and phones all competing for portions of the pipe—that makes it difficult.
Another issue affecting ISP satisfaction is choice. There are dozens of broadband ISPs in the United States. Eighteen received at least the requisite 50 responses to be included in our survey analysis this year. However, in any one area, you typically are very limited in your choices. Nearly a third of our respondents (32 percent) said they either don't have any choice in ISPs or weren't sure if they had a choice.
It's not all bad news, however. It shouldn't be a given that ISPs provide terrible experiences. As you will see, a couple of service providers set themselves apart from the competition by providing satisfaction levels of several aspects of service that are substantially better than the competition. If you use one of these ISPs, congratulations. If you don't, make sure your ISPs knows you expect better.
The PCMag Readers' Choice survey for Internet Service Providers was in the field from April 24, 2017 through May 15, 2017. For more information on how the survey is conducted, read the survey methodology. Each person who completed the survey was entered into a drawing to win an Amazon.com gift card valued at $350.
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Wondering which ISPs provide the most speed? Read The Fastest ISPs in the USA. Then test your ISP's speed right here.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
In the midst of Triple Crown season, the horse racing metaphors come easy when talking broadband. Eighteen ISPs showed up at our survey starting gates for 2017, but two were in a class of their own, leaving all the rest in their dust.
Those two ISPs, RCN and Verizon FiOS, are neck-and-neck to the finish line, and we decided to hand each of them a Readers' Choice award (again). This is the third straight year RCN has won the Readers' Choice Award. For Verizon Fios, it's a record-setting twelfth year as a winner.
RCN provides cable and fiber connections in select areas, and recently purchased Grande Communications and Wave Broadband to become the nation's sixth largest ISP. Verizon Fios—not to be confused with other Verizon-branded options like wireless and DSL—is a fiber-to-the-home service.
Both finished with identical overall satisfaction ratings of 8.1 on our scale from 0 (extremely dissatisfied) to 10 (extremely satisfied). This is down a bit from last year when both had ratings of 8.4. On the other hand, the next closest finisher was WOW! Internet, which only rated a 7.2 this year, down from 8.3—and a Readers' Choice award—last year.
In the middle of the pack are big names like Comcast Xfinity (6.9) and Spectrum (6.8)—the former being the nation's largest internet provider; the latter is the new uber-ISP formed by the merger of Charter, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks, creating the second biggest ISP in the US. Bringing up the far rear, three ISPs received overall satisfaction ratings below 5.0: Verizon DSL (4.8), Frontier DSL (4.5), and Windstream (4.4).
RCN bested Verizon and the rest of the competition in likelihood to recommend, a key measure of customer loyalty. RCN received an 8.2; Verizon Fios was just behind at 8.0, while Frontier (3.6) and Windstream (3.9) finished under 4.0.
That likelihood to recommend rating is also used to calculate the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures overall how customer feel about a brand; this year, RCN, Verizon Fios, and WOW were the only three to even get positive numbers—as in, every single other ISP in our survey had so many detractors, their scores were less than zero. Even RCN's 37 percent NPS isn't much to trumpet and is well down from last year's 49 percent.
As noted in our intro, consumers pay a lot of money for broadband and most feel it's way too much. RCN received the highest rating for satisfaction with fees. Even at 6.9, there's certainly room for improvement but it's far better than anyone else. WOW came in second on satisfaction with fees with a 6.0. Satisfaction with fees is Verizon Fios's main Achilles heel. The ISP rated only 5.4 on this measure. Still, that's better than the 11 ISPs that rated below 5.0. Optimum Online was at the back with a dismal 4.2.
Verizon Fios' strength has always been its speed and reliability and this year is no different. The ISP had the best marks for satisfaction with speed (8.0) and reliability (8.4). RCN also posted the second best ratings in those areas (each at 7.9). Respondents who needed technical help or repair work on their connection gave Verizon Fios the best ratings for satisfaction with technical support (7.4) and satisfaction with repairs (6.9). RCN was 0.1 points behind on both these measures and rated best for non-technical customer service (7.3), a full furlong ahead of all the other ISPs.
Not only were RCN's technical services well regarded, the ISP also had the lowest percentage of respondents needing technical support (18 percent, tied with Verizon Wireless) and repairs (6 percent). RCN received its highest satisfaction rating in the Initial Setup measure (8.5), but that was slightly behind AT&T Fiber (8.6).
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See all of our survey results for ISPs.
WINNERS: INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS
RCN
Lucky you if you live in one of the metropolitan areas where you can pick RCN to be your ISP. For the third straight year, the company earns a Readers' Choice Award. RCN is the complete package, providing very good speed and reliability backed by support services that are among the best.
Verizon Fios
The fact that Verizon's fiber-to-the-home network is no longer expanding (and has been bought out in some areas by other providers, like Frontier), is a crime. Since its launch in 2005, Fios has been utterly adored by the PCMag readers who can get it. It may never see high scores like it did in the past, but current customers are still extremely happy with speed and reliability.
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