Wireless phone subscribership topped 250 million across the nation in November, but service issues continue to plague the industry, according to consumer surveys.
In the Consumer Reports Annual Survey of Cell-Phone Service, which will be published in the January issue of Consumer Reports magazine, fewer than half of cell phone subscribers reported being completely or very satisfied with their service.
"That makes cell service among the lower-rated services we survey, as it has been for the past six years," said the Consumer Reports National Research Center in the survey.
Best among cell phone companies, the survey of 47,000 readers in 20 major metropolitan areas found, are Verizon and Alltel. A close runner-up is T-Mobile, which matched Verizon‘s satisfaction rates in nearly all the cities surveyed.
Consumer Reports added that T-Mobile provides more services for the money than either Verizon or Alltel.
AT&T, the largest cell phone provider in the United States with 65.7 million subscribers and Oklahoma’s dominant wireless company, scored low in the survey for service and customer satisfaction.
"Service and satisfaction were clearly second-tier and connectivity was below average, thanks to static and service failures in many of the metro areas we surveyed," Consumer Reports says.
Still, the magazine praised AT&T for its rollover minutes, which allow subscribers to carry over unused minutes for up to one year.
The survey also found AT&T‘s Smart Limits for Wireless service is appreciated by parents.
"It’s a $5-a-month option that allows you to control, via the Web, the numbers your child can call, text or instant message, and the timing and duration of that activity," Consumer Reports says.
AT&T spokesman Andy Morgan disputed the Consumer Reports survey, which he said did not align with the company’s own research and testing.
"In the wireless business, the truest indicator of customer satisfaction is churn or turnover," Morgan said in a telephone interview. "If customers don’t like you, they vote with their feet and go to another provider.
"Churn for AT&T‘s contract (cell phone) customers was just 1.3 percent in the third quarter, one of the lowest in the business."
The Consumer Reports survey is consistent with the same survey reported almost a year ago.
Last January, 42,921 Consumer Reports readers rated Verizon first in overall performance, followed by Alltel; T-Mobile; Cingular, which merged with AT&T Wireless and became AT&T; and Sprint.
But the Consumer Reports survey differs from the findings of the J.D. Power and Associates 2007 Wireless Call Quality Performance Study, which was issued in September.
It found that the number of customer-reported call quality problems was 15 problems per 100 calls, down 29 percent from the same period a year earlier. Improvements were noted in the number of dropped calls, initial disconnects and interference or static.
"Wireless providers have clearly made great strides in improving call quality," Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power, said in a written statement. "With an increasingly competitive environment and a jump in the number of services used in conjunction with cell phones, carriers that offer superior network quality are more likely to attract new customers and increase customer retention."
Consumer Reports’ survey found that cellular phone providers’ often onerous contract terms and early termination penalties are being revised under the pressure of class-action lawsuits.
"In the past five years, consumer advocates such as the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, in Santa Monica, Calif., and class action lawyers have filed more than 100 lawsuits coast to coast, according to an analysis by Thomson West, a legal-information-services firm," the magazine says.
"The cases involve issues such as early-termination fees, calculation of air time, arbitration requirements, class-action prohibitions, rebates and other contract provisions.
"One important outcome was a spate of recent court decisions in several states that struck down as "unconscionable" cell service contract provisions that had forced customers to arbitrate disputes individually and prohibited them from banding together into class actions."
In one of the lawsuits, filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, the plaintiffs allege that after Cingular‘s acquisition of AT&T Wireless, Cingular schemed to dismantle the AT&T Wireless network and degrade its services.
The plaintiffs allege that Cingular induced AT&T Wireless customers to switch to a Cingular plan with more expensive fees.
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Contact the author D.R. Stewart at 581-8451 or [email protected]
