Consumer Reports -- AT&T Is The Worst Wireless Carrier In United States... By Far

Consumer Reports has released findings from a member survey which, as we’ve been saying for years, ranks AT&T as the worst wireless provider in the country when it comes to voice, value, and data performance. AT&T scored the lowest possible score in 8 of 9 total categories, only scoring the second to the worst score in texting.

Consumer Reports isn’t as popular as it once was, however, quite a few still value their opinion highly… AT&T is just hoping that most of their customers are don’t…

We take this seriously and we continually look for new ways to improve the customer experience. The fact is wireless customers have choices and a record number of them chose AT&T in the third quarter, significantly more than our competitors. Hard data from independent drive tests confirms AT&T has the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network with our nearest competitor 20 percent slower on average nationwide and our largest competitor 60 percent slower on average nationwide. And, our dropped call rate is within 1/10 of a percent – the equivalent of just one call in a thousand – of the industry leader.

The fact that AT&T can be rated this low, but, be the sole carrier of the highest rated device says a heck of a lot about the iPhone. My guess is that carrier churn from iPhone users switching from AT&T over to Verizon once Verizon gets the iPhone will be unprecedented.

[Source]

GC

Not to defend ATT but a lot of this depends on where you are. In Florida I find them to be very good as far as data goes getting usually good speed over the network. I rarely lose 3G. I was recently in the NY metro area and had to set my phone to 2G only due to the lousy 3G network.
Their voice on the other hand has improved some but the issue with dropped calls is still in my opinion a major problem.
- http://www.rimarkable.com Robb Dunewood
  
  Not so much when you are on Verizon…
  
  I understand that AT&T isn’t horrible everywhere, but, it is in so many places that consumer reports ranks them the lowest…
swatlas

ATT is absolutely HORRIBLE in the Stanford University area … more dropped calls than non-dropped calls, in my experience and in the experience of tons of people in Palo Alto and the area. However, in general, they do get devices that people want.
Daqie

I had AT&T for over 10 years. I’d love to see the regional breakdown as well as phone breakdown of the poll. I find it hard to believe that T-Mobile beat out AT&T. Its been my observance that if I know someone who has poor service they’re usually on T-Mobile (in the NYC area to clarify). I generally have decent service. I’ve never had a problem with customer service or SMS. I think unfortunately this is a report on customer perception, not necessarily actuality. Certain carriers based on what phones they carry have different types of phones users and tech experience. I believe this has a lot to do with the users perception of service.