The Best (and Worst) ISPs
More than 6000 PC World readers told us how major providers rate for speed, tech support, and more. We reveal which broadband and dial-up services make the grade and which fall flat.Susan Silvius
Susan Silvius is a freelance writer in the San Francisco Bay Area. Reporting by Northern California-based freelancer Galen Gruman.
When we asked more than 6000 PC World subscribers to rate their Internet service provider, we got an earful, and a few surprises. Broadband users: You're happy with your provider, which you've probably been using for years, and you're also likely to get television or telephone service from the same company that delivers Web access to your home. Dial-up users: You're less thrilled with your Internet service, but for the most part you're resigned to the technology's slow speed and aren't necessarily inclined to move up to broadband. And while all of you use the Internet every day, you're still more likely to be checking your e-mail and browsing text-heavy Web sites than streaming video and audio or using Voice over IP. We asked readers to rate their ISP's tech support, reliability, speeds, spam blocking, and more, to see which ones deliver the best experience. The PC World readers we surveyed had their favorites: EarthLink cable, Cablevision, and Time Warner's Road Runner service were ranked the best cable ISPs, while Verizon got top honors for DSL. AT&T WorldNet was the favorite dial-up provider of our respondents. See the chart in this article for your ISP's ranking.
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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.
Dial-Up Blues
Dial-up providers commonly offer software-based accelerators to help speed things up, either for free or at an extra charge. Only 30 percent of the dial-up respondents who are aware of an accelerator and use it are very happy with it, however. Also, acceleration boosts speeds by only about 20 to 50 percent at a cost to the customer that often approaches the price of DSL, yet DSL increases speed from 1000 to 2000 percent over dial-up.
Yankee Group analyst Mahoney says, "That's why accelerated dial-up makes sense only for the $10-a-month providers, who are seeing significant uptake for the extra-cost accelerated options." According to Mahoney, "the premium dial-up services of AOL and EarthLink are basically surviving off customers who don't think about their provider or service, and just keep paying every month."
Photograph by Donna Bise
Augustine Sodaro is one of the many America Online loyalists who can see no reason to change services. He runs an on-the-spot automobile dent removal business from his home in Maryville, Tennessee. Sodaro and his wife have been AOL customers since 2000 and use the service for e-mail, Web research, and buying and selling items on EBay. "I needed a user-friendly connection," says Sodaro. "I looked at MSN, BellSouth, and several others, and AOL seemed to be the most user-friendly. The layout is easy to understand and doesn't take long to navigate. If there were something wrong with AOL, I might look at NetZero or PeoplePC, but so far I haven't had any reason to do so," he says. Sodaro also gives good marks to AOL's technical support, saying he's been satisfied the two times he's had to contact AOL about a problem.
Even though our survey shows that, on average, dial-up users are less satisfied overall than their broadband counterparts, many of the folks using dial-up told us they were unlikely to switch providers anytime soon. And according to Yankee Group's Mahoney, they're not all that eager to switch to a broadband service, either, despite the fact that the majority of them have broadband options available. The reason: dial-up's low cost.
Dial-up isn't going away, but people moving to broadband speak glowingly about their new service, regardless of which technology they have adopted. Take Catherine Genna, for example. The lactation consultant from Woodhaven, New York, switched to Covad's DSL service two years ago. "With broadband, we can download amazingly huge files," Genna says. "Three weeks ago, I got some ultrasound videos in just minutes. Being able to communicate with people at the forefront of business around the world aids how well I'm able to teach and help my clients locally." Genna states further that the absence of problems with her DSL service is as important to her as the technology's fast transmission speeds.
Tech Support Stumbles
While broadband customers are generally satisfied with their service, they are not terribly happy with the quality of the customer and technical support they get, regardless of who their provider is. Subscribers to Road Runner and Cablevision gave those service providers the highest technical-support scores, followed by the local and regional ISPs that fell into the "Other" category (see "The Little ISP Around the Corner" in this article for more about local services). Even for the top-scoring Road Runner, tech-support satisfaction was a modest 65 percent.
Road Runner and Cox were close to the top in customer-support satisfaction, while Comcast received middling grades; AOL, NetZero, and MSN (for dial-up service) brought up the rear.
Karl Bode, editor of the ISP ratings Web site BroadbandReports.com (formerly known as DSLreports.com), says that even with improvements in equipment and technology, broadband installation remains problematic. "Many of the complaints we see on our message boards have to do with shoddy installation," Bode reports. "Someone has broadband service installed, but then realizes there's a problem. Usually they notice that their download speeds are slower than they expect. Often the customer has to make a series of calls to get the line levels corrected to get a good signal," he says.
Photograph by Webb Chappell
Gail Cafferty has first-hand experience with the problem. She's a second-grade teacher who lives in Cranston, Rhode Island, and who has been a Cox subscriber since 2003. Cafferty gives the company generally good grades (and won't hesitate to recommend the service to others). Still, when she installed her cable connection, Cafferty struggled to get the level of service she had contracted for. "One week after Cox sent a technician to install our service, everything died," she says. "I was sure the installation wasn't the problem. I called the tech support line and had to deal with someone who didn't understand what I was talking about, and who made me walk through everything I'd already done before getting to the next level of support," Cafferty says.
Cafferty persisted until Cox agreed to send a technician to her home, who ultimately diagnosed and corrected the problem, which turned out to be Cox's fault. A month later, Cafferty noted an $80 service charge for the house call on her bill. "They hadn't told me they would charge me for the service call," she says. "I wouldn't have noticed had I not paid attention to my bill. It took me over an hour on the phone with them--talking to lots of people up the chain--to get them to reverse the charges, but they finally agreed. I've had no problem since then and am now happy with my service." Unfortunately, such service charges are common among broadband providers, so keep an eye on your monthly fees.
Catherine Genna had initially ordered high-speed service from EarthLink to be installed on the business line in her home office. Six weeks later, frustrated that EarthLink hadn't provided service, she switched to Covad. The company immediately told her that it was impossible for it or any other provider to offer DSL on her business line, and promptly installed the service on her home line instead. According to Genna, completing the cancellation order from EarthLink and receiving a refund took another six weeks. "I have friends who have had good experiences with EarthLink, so it was disappointing to me that I didn't," she says.
Hit-and-Miss Extras
Of course, many providers offer more than just an Internet connection. For example, antivirus, antispam, and anti-spyware services are now de rigueur with many ISPs--and the list is ever expanding. Unlike with service and reliability, no ISP was a consistent winner on our survey when it came to some of these extra features (see "Surveying ISP Satisfaction: Additional Features").
For example, Road Runner ranked highly for its e-mail service, but its users were dissatisfied with the company's spam blocking and parental controls. EarthLink users were among the happiest with their ISP's e-mail service, but they were far less enthusiastic about EarthLink's parental controls and free storage. AOL, which did not perform well in service or reliability, turned out to have more satisfied users when it came to e-mail and antivirus services, parental controls, and personalization features.
Get Your Money's Worth
Whether you want to switch ISPs or get a better deal from the one you have, shop around a bit and do your homework before calling a provider, to maximize your service and minimize your costs.
Research options in your area: Check sites such as BroadbandReports.com and FindAnISP.com to determine which providers serve your location. Often you'll discover that you have more choices now than you did last year.
Ask about promotions: Call your ISP's competitors to ask about promotions and upgrade specials. If you're a broadband subscriber dissatisfied with your download and upload speeds, you may find a higher-bandwidth service you can afford.
Richard Wise, an SBC Yahoo DSL subscriber from North Little Rock, Arkansas, offers some astute advice. "I get my TV from one provider (Dish Network), and my phone and Internet access from the local telephone company (SBC)," Wise says. "I could get all three on one bill, but then I'd lose my leverage. Now when I see SBC advertising a special for new Internet service subscribers, I call them up and tell them to rerate me. When they tell me I'm ineligible because I'm a long-term subscriber, I tell them to reward me as a valued customer or else I'll switch," he says. Wise applies this technique liberally. "When I see my [satellite TV] rates start to creep up, I simply tell them I'll switch to cable unless they keep my rates down."
Do the math before bundling: Cable ISPs and telephone companies almost always offer a discount when you order multiple services, such as both television and phone (see Consumer Watch for more). For example, Cox customers who already subscribe to the company's cable TV service save $10 a month on Internet access. Over half of our survey respondents told us they took advantage of such deals. But remember, the savings probably won't be more than $5 to $15 per month. Providers love bundles because the practice brings in more revenue per user over the same lines, while simultaneously making customers less likely to switch, notes Yankee Group's Mahoney.
Many ISPs now offer Voice-over-IP telephone service, which sends voice traffic over the Internet rather than on the traditional telephone network, as part of a bundle or as an extra service. Despite potential savings for heavy out-of-area callers, none of the survey respondents we interviewed expressed much interest in signing up for VoIP service. Instead they generally preferred to remain with their existing local and long-distance carriers.
Read the fine print: Before you sign up for one of those low-introductory-cost specials, make sure you know exactly what you're getting into. Many DSL and cable providers entice new subscribers with a low initial monthly charge, but they lock you into a long-term agreement with penalties up to $250 for breaking the contract before the term expires. That isn't to say these are bad deals. Just be sure you identify all the gotchas before you sign up, including fees for activation, equipment, and installation, as well as term commitments and early-cancellation penalties.
For example, as we went to press, EarthLink offered DSL download speeds of 1.5 megabits per second and upload speeds of 384 kilobits per second for $20 per month for the first six months and $40 per month thereafter, but only if you signed up for at least one year, agreed to an "early termination fee" of $150, and performed the modem installation yourself. SBC Yahoo had a similar package: $20 per month with the same download/upload speeds for a minimum of 12 months. There was no activation fee, and installation was free as long as you installed the service yourself. However, canceling early would set you back $200.
Cable Internet providers typically charge a higher monthly fee from the get-go, but their transmission speeds are almost always faster than DSL--and you rarely have to sign a long-term contract. Cox Cable, for example, charges new customers a monthly fee of $50 for download speeds up to 5 mbps and uploads as fast as 768 kbps, with no cost for the installation, as long as you handle it yourself. Depending on your bundle, RCN charges $26 to $43 per month for download speeds up to 10 mbps and upload speeds of up to 800 kbps. Installation charges of $50 to $150 are frequently waived as part of new-customer promotions; you can rent the cable modem for $5 per month, or you can supply your own. Cox is one of several cable ISPs that provide the cable modem for free. But keep in mind that with any broadband ISP you have to pay for a network interface card for your computer if it doesn't already have one (a NIC is also a requirement for DSL).
And one other thing to keep in mind: If you install the service yourself, be prepared to deal with Windows' Network Properties dialog boxes as you enter new settings for your broadband connection.
Get ready for a new e-mail address: Whether you're trading dial-up for broadband or moving from, say, one DSL provider to another, changing your Internet service can be a real hassle. For example, if you've been using the same e-mail address for years, you'll have to notify all your contacts about the change (though most ISPs now offer free e-mail forwarding services for the first several months after you sign up, and for a slight charge for subsequent months).
One option is to create a permanent address through a Web mail service such as MSN Hotmail or Yahoo Mail. Both offer basic service for free, as well as a premium service with more storage and other add-ons for a nominal fee. Keep in mind, though, that users of such free e-mail accounts often gets lots of spam.
Yankee Group's Mahoney says his surveys show that the difficulties related to changing e-mail addresses are the primary reason people are reluctant to switch ISPs. And Forrester Research analyst Ted Schadler notes a demographic reason users retain their service: older people are less likely than youngsters to switch Internet providers, primarily because they want to avoid the hassle of an e-mail change.
Faster Services on the Way
Broadband transmission speeds have jumped in the last year as DSL and cable providers install equipment in more neighborhoods, which reduces reliance on slower copper links to the Internet's backbone network. Telephone companies are rolling out "fiber to the curb": optical lines that run to residential blocks, often in place of copper, whether underground or along poles. The lines to and within homes are still copper, since rewiring at that level is too expensive, notes IDC analyst Sterling Perrin. The primary benefit of fiber is speed: Data travels much faster over light than it does over copper, and fiber supports more lines in a single cable than will fit in a standard copper line.
Cable companies' high-capacity coaxial cables give them a built-in advantage over DSL providers in delivering video and other high-bandwidth applications. DSL's copper lines were designed to carry low-bandwidth voice calls. New signal-processing technologies may bring DSL speeds closer to those of the cable network, however. The new VDSL standard, which carriers are beginning to implement, supports transmission speeds to 10 mbps. Further, the VDSL2 proposal calls for speeds as high as 100 mbps and availability as soon as 2006, says IDC's Perrin.
Customers typically don't need to upgrade their equipment to benefit from such broadband speed increases; their modems will simply run at the higher speeds. (Of course, you probably won't get the speed boost unless you upgrade your service plan, since providers instruct modems to stay within certain performance levels despite the available bandwidth.) Like so many things in the world, you get what you pay for.
The Little ISP Around the Corner
The ISP industry is dominated by big-name cable and phone companies for broadband, and a handful of national dial-up providers such as America Online, EarthLink, and NetZero. But you can still get a reasonable deal on Internet service from a provider in your local area. While you probably won't pay a cheaper rate, you'll likely receive more attentive service--and enjoy the satisfaction of spending your money in your own community.
Staying Close to Home
"I like supporting a local business," says Paula Park, a Santa Rosa, California, resident and subscriber to local ISP Sonic.net since 2001. Although her access costs more than it would through the telephone company in her area, she's philosophical about accepting the additional expense. "The bigger companies have huge marketing budgets, and are able to undercut the little guys," she says. "At the same time, my expectation [for local businesses such as Sonic.net] is that they have to be better in order to compete. I've dealt with SBC. Their customer service is bad. They don't give you anything that they don't absolutely have to," says Park.
IDC analyst Steve Harris estimates that at least 7000 ISPs in the United States--probably a lot more--serve only local markets. Collectively, these companies own no more than 1 percent of the overall market, according to Harris. Why don't the locals own a larger share? Because typically their services are limited, and they take longer to start offering faster services to their customers.
Photograph by Robert Houser
Although Sonic.net started in 1994 as a small operation based in its founder's home in Santa Rosa, it is now a regional provider covering much of Northern California. By reinvesting profits back into the business, Sonic.net has evolved from solely a dial-up ISP to a full-service provider offering DSL and wireless high-speed services. It has 40,000 customers, supporting them with a staff of 65. Sonic.net CEO Dane Jasper notes that 60 percent of the firm's business comes from DSL service.
Sonic.net also provides business-class SDSL, T1, and T3 service. DSL isn't cheaper from Sonic.net than from a larger ISP, but Jasper claims his company maintains higher customer satisfaction because it provides an educated, responsive support staff that is "closer to the customer."
Service a Walk Away
Park bears that out. "They have an office I can walk into," she says. "When I had a problem [with a DSL link], SBC couldn't tell me whether the problem was with the service or the modem. I took the modem to Sonic.net, and a tech came out and tested it on the spot. He also walked me through all the workarounds I needed to fix the problem with SBC--he taught me how to work the system."
Susan SilviusFixed Wireless Fills the Broadband Gaps
Until recently, people in many rural and suburban areas had no choice for Internet access other than dial-up. Worse, outlying dial-up links are often less reliable than urban lines because data has to travel farther, reducing throughput to as low as 21 kilobits per second. This can cause Web-page downloads and e-mail links to time out as the host server gives up.
Take to the Air
Residents in many such communities now have a new broadband alternative: fixed-wireless Internet service (in which the wireless antenna is in a fixed location). These areas aren't all located on the plains of North Dakota or the deserts of Nevada, however. Loudoun County, Virginia, just a few hours' drive from Washington, D.C., has neither DSL nor cable Internet service. Many professionals who want to work from home move there, only to find that they can't get high-speed Internet access. In response, Marty Dougherty formed Roadstar Internet in Leesburg, Virginia. The wireless ISP serves about 1000 customers who pay $59 and up per month (plus a $250 setup fee) for download and upload speeds of 1 megabit per second or faster.
For example, Doug Schmude moved a few years ago from suburban Washington, which had both DSL and cable service, to eastern Loudoun County, which has neither. To get broadband access for his IT consultancy, Schmude set up an office in Leesburg, where he could get a T1 line. But at his home, Roadstar's wireless Internet service allows him to do his work without having to drive all the way into Leesburg. Schmude says the wireless network's performance and stability are at least as good as that of his previous cable and DSL service. Plus, Roadstar's support is much better than what he got from his previous ISPs.
Subsidizing Broadband
In some cases government subsidies make wireless Internet service practical in areas with too few people for a provider to recoup the cost of setting up and running a network. For example, a low-interest federal loan helped Minnesota-based wireless ISP StoneBridge expand its service to 31 rural towns near Minneapolis and St. Paul. StoneBridge charges residents $59 per month for its 1-mbps (upload and download) service, as well as an $850 setup fee. The loan lets the company serve its rural customers, but StoneBridge makes its money providing commercial Internet service to small businesses, hospitals, and schools. Even though wireless costs less to deploy than wired connections, demand for broadband in rural areas is rarely sufficient to be profitable, says Tim Johnson, StoneBridge's director of strategic alliances.
The cost inefficiency in covering large areas may be why wireless ISPs tend to serve hundreds or at most a few thousand clients. Broadband Wireless Exchange magazine notes that the ten largest wireless ISPs together had 31,355 customers in 2004. Roadstar's Dougherty worries that a major telephone or cable company will enter the market, offering bundled TV, phone, and Internet service at $90 to $100 per month. With that kind of bundling, rural customers such as the users Roadstar serves would become cost-effective for bigger companies.
Galen GrumanReaders Rate the ISPs: Cable and DSL More Satisfying Than Dial-Up
Our survey of more than 6000 PC World subscribers shows that broadband users are more satisfied with speed, reliability, and overall service. Cable providers had much lower satisfaction scores in spam blocking than most DSL and dial-up companies.
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Surveying ISP Satisfaction: Additional Features
Broadband ISP customers may be more satisfied than dial-up users with the speed and support they receive, but for antivirus, parental controls, personalization, and other special features, broadband and dial-up scores are comparable.
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