YONKERS, N.Y.-Crappy New Year to all. Or, at least, to some.
Consumer Reports has taken a look at mobile carriers and handsets in the United States in its January 2007 issue and, apart from a few companies that may do cartwheels after receiving the magazine’s praise, many in the industry may not like the findings. Specifically, Cingular Wireless L.L.C. and Sprint Nextel Corp. are singled out as “poor performers.”
In general, Consumer Reports subscribers give wireless carriers overall a score of 66 out of 100, which is on par with “other perennial low-scorers” such as cable TV and computer tech support. Fifty-four percent of readers who switched carriers in the past three years attributed their decision to poor service, while 33 percent sought a better price.
Cingular takes the biggest hit in the carrier survey. Noting Cingular’s advertised claim of “fewest dropped calls”-according to “the leading independent research company” (Telephia, not CR)-Consumer Reports found that Cingular is “about average” on dropped calls and “one of the poorer performers” in overall satisfaction. Sprint Nextel and Cingular were at the bottom of the list in most of the 20 metropolitan areas the magazine surveyed. (The survey did not extend to Sprint Nextel’s iDEN users.)
Spokespersons for Cingular and Sprint Nextel were not immediately available for comment on the report.
Verizon Wireless got the overall best rating for network quality and responsiveness to customer enquiries. Alltel garnered top place-and the highest satisfaction ratings per individual city in the survey-for service in the three surveyed markets it serves: Cleveland, Phoenix and Tampa. T-Mobile USA Inc. ranked as “a solid performer” in markets with sufficient data to rank it, but lacked service in four of the 20 markets surveyed (Cleveland, Detroit, Miami and San Diego.)
Consumer Reports conducted online surveys with nearly 43,000 CR subscribers on the quality of their carrier’s service. In the case of network quality, the magazine asked readers in 20 major, U.S. metropolitan areas to rate their carrier on four criteria: no service, circuits full, dropped calls and static.
The magazine also surveyed 18,000 of its subscribers on their mobile phone-buying experiences and, separately, focused on 34 handset models and eight smart phones.
According to Consumer Reports’ subscribers, Verizon Wireless’ top three phones were the Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. SCH-a930 ($165), the LG Electronics Co. Ltd. VX8300 ($75) and the carrier’s own CDM 8945 ($50). Sprint Nextel’s top three phones included Samsung’s MM-A800 ($30), Sprint Nextel’s own CDM-120 (free) and Samsung’s A920 ($150). The top three GSM phones available at Cingular include the Motorola Inc. Slvr L7 ($153), the Pantech C300 ($50) and the LG C2000 (free). At T-Mobile USA, the top three include the Motorola V195 ($30), the Motorola V360 (free) and the Nokia 6101 (free).
Consumer Reports rated handsets based on survey respondents’ views of voice qualities (listening, talking, talk time, sensitivity and ease-of-use) and features (ease of muting, ringer, external memory, Bluetooth voice, camera resolution and analog backup). The magazine said that slightly higher overall scores for GSM phones over CDMA phones were due to GSM’s “inherently longer battery life.”
