Posted by madcityradio.com on October 02, 2008 at 07:04:35:
U-verse No. 1, Charter last in J.D. Power survey
AT&T U-verse ranked highest in customer satisfaction in three regions - including the North Central region that includes Wisconsin - and Verizon FiOS ranked highest in the other region in the J.D. Power and Associates 2008 Residential Television Service Satisfaction Study released Wednesday.
U-verse scored 730 out of 1,000 possible points for first in the North Central Region, while Charter was last with a score of 538.
In between were WOW! At 702, DirecTV at 660, Insight at 655, Cox at 639, DISH Network at 627, Bright House at 611, Time Warner Cable at 581, Comcast at 554, and Mediacom at 547.
Smaller TV providers like MHTC, which serves the Mount Horeb, Blue Mounds and Dodgeville areas, weren't included.
The scores are based on five factors: performance and reliability; customer service; cost of service; billing; and offerings and promotions.
U-verse serves portions of more than 200 communities in Wisconsin and is expected to debut in the Madison market before the end of the year.
This the first year that the phone companies' TV services - U-verse and FiOS, which Verizon has no time frame for bringing to its Madison area communities - were included in the study. J.D. Power said the services performed particularly well in the offerings and promotions factor, specifically with their bundled pricing options, as well as performance and reliability factor, especially regarding reception clarity.
The annual study also found that the number of households that report viewing high-definition TV programming has nearly doubled since 2007, reaching 55 percent of households.
The study is based on responses from 18,938 U.S. households in July.
(Jeff Richgels, 77 Square)