Ranking ISPs

PCWorld published an article ranking Internet Service Providers: The Best (and Worst) ISPs

Cox (our local Cable ISP) ranked 72% for overall service (highest was Earthlink cable at 81%), 66% for reliability (highest was CableVision cable at 84%), 58% for tech support (highest was RoadRunner cable at 65%), 58% for customer support (highest was RoadRunner cable at 63%), 76% for download speed (highest was CableVision cable at 91%), 64% for upload speed (highest was CableVision cable at 84%), 34% for spam blocking (highest was CableVision cable at 84%).

Dwight Silverman blogged The biggest non-surprise: broadband users are much happier with their service than are dialup users. Well, duh.

Obviously they are happier. I wish that rather than just asking how satisfied they were with upload and download speeds they asked for them to be determined with a consistent measuring site.

The biggest surprise: Using broadband doesn't necessarily mean users consume more video and other bandwidth-heavy services.

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.

The heart of the piece is a chart with satisfaction rankings for major ISPs. Cable-modem providers did better than their DSL competitors.

At the top are three cable-modem providers: Earthlink, Cablevision and Time Warner's RoadRunner. Verizon is the first DSL provider on the list at No. 4. SBC Yahoo's DSL service is No. 7.