Consumer Reports: FiOS, U-Verse Best Triple Play - Assuming it's deployed in your neighborhood...
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Consumer Reports: FiOS, U-Verse Best Triple Play
Assuming it's deployed in your neighborhood...
(old news - 04:55PM Friday Jan 09 2009)
tags: dsl · prices · competition · business · cable · bundles · consumers · Verizon FIOS · AT&T U-Verse
Tipped by TKJunkMail
The latest Consumer Reports survey of major telecom providers and bundled services, featured in the February issue, proclaims that AT&T and Verizon perform the best when it comes to offering the triple play (VoIP, data and TV). While the study itself is behind a pay wall, the press release offers tips on getting the best triple play (or double play) deal from carriers. Quality of service varies by geographical region and competition (or lack thereof), making uniform national ratings for quality sometimes unhelpful -- but CR offers some good pointers.

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"Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse, whose networks are fiber-optic based, were the most consistently satisfying providers for their Internet, television, and telephone services," reported Consumers Union, who publishes the magazine. "In areas where telco-delivered service is not available, a highly-rated cable company is the next-best choice for many households," says Consumer Reports.

By highly rated they mean Bright House and Cox, as their ratings (pdf) have Comcast and Charter continuing a trend of coming in last in these types of surveys. The Consumer Reports blog originally requested data for the survey -- and while the report indicates a high level of satisfaction with triple play bundles, the comments left at the Consumer Reports blog reflect the usual mixed bag of success and horror stories. Qwest in particular seems to take a hammering.

As has always been the case, you may find that buying services independently remains your best bet, depending on the quality of competition and carriers in your market. One small nit to pick with Consumer Reports: AT&T U-Verse isn't technically fiber optic broadband. It's fiber to the node and VDSL2. You only get to confuse the difference between last mile and core network fiber if you work in telecom marketing.

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baineschile @ 9th Jan 03:56PM:
Karl...

How can you say that "people love the triple play from Uverse" when its not even on that list!?!?

More anti-cable/copper junk, pro fiber.
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ptrowski @ 9th Jan 03:58PM:
Re: Karl...

Karl didn't, the article stated it. That picture doesn't necessarily come from the study as you have to pay to get the results.

"Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse, whose networks are fiber-optic based, were the most consistently satisfying providers for their Internet, television, and telephone services," reported Consumers Union, who publishes the magazine. "In areas where telco-delivered service is not available, a highly-rated cable company is the next-best choice for many households," says Consumer Reports.
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TKJunkMail @ 9th Jan 03:59PM:
Re: Karl...

said by baineschile :

How can you say that "people love the triple play from Uverse" when its not even on that list!?!?

More anti-cable/copper junk, pro fiber.
Here is the latest Triple Play chart:

[att=1]

The one in the story was a 2008 chart.

But the new chart doesn't change the accuracy of the original story 1 bit.

Of course, Consumer Reports listing U-Verse as fiber based is misleading. Because if you can call U-Verse fiber based you could call all these services(incl all the cable companies) fiber based because they are all at least FTTN at heart.

P.S. Hybrid means satellite TV is part of the pkg.
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hottboiinnc @ 9th Jan 04:04PM:
Re: Karl...

you mean anti-cable pro Telco.

You just don't get great ratings in those magazines without doing anything. ;) I bet if you go back and ask the same few "customers" they asked if they knew the difference between FiOS over cable they'll tell you no. Or U-Verse over Cable. They won't except tell you what AT$T or VZ's sales reps told them.

And also this was back before AT$T and VZ announced price increases. $10 more for 100 channels on U-Verse HA! Yes 100 channels for $64 you can't count those "U-Verse" channels as they're "customer information" and you can't count music channels either.
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Karl Bode @ 9th Jan 04:06PM:
Re: Karl...

More anti-cable/copper junk, pro fiber.
you mean anti-cable pro Telco.
I say he's pro-puppy murder!

You've seen through my effort to destroy the cable industry by pretending they consistently perform poorly in consumer satisfaction studies. I've updated the piece with TK's more complete survey result .jpg; not sure why the first image he submitted omitted AT&T, but it wasn't a part of a secret cabal...
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TKJunkMail @ 9th Jan 04:27PM:
Re: Karl...

said by Karl Bode :

I've updated the piece with TK's more complete survey results; not sure why the first image he submitted omitted AT&T.
The original story link pointed to the wrong chart(it was an older one). The story now has the correct charts.
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Eat Me @ 9th Jan 04:31PM:
What's fiber exactly?

Why is AT&T VDSL U-Verse called "fiber" when the last mile is VDSL?

If U-Verse can be called fiber, then so can cable company HFC networks.

To me, only FTTH, FTTC or FTTB can be called a "fiber" service. The rest depend on copper for the last mile.
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Lee GWB @ 9th Jan 04:32PM:
Re: Karl...

Karl,
Funny .. But Billing?????? It has gotten much better but I still had to call for Credit due to a Faulty VOD push last month.Obviously the "Guide" was not factored in :P
Good work !!!
Lee
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Karl Bode @ 9th Jan 04:32PM:
Re: Karl...

Thanks for the new image. I've plugged it in.
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ptrowski @ 9th Jan 04:34PM:
Re: What's fiber exactly?

said by Eat Me :

Why is AT&T VDSL U-Verse called "fiber" when the last mile is VDSL?

If U-Verse can be called fiber, then so can cable company HFC networks.

To me, only FTTH or FTTB can be called a "fiber" service. The rest depend on copper for the last mile.
Yeah that is a real stretch there. I guess they put it as fiber as new developments are getting fiber FTTP but it really should not be classified that way IMHO.
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Karl Bode @ 9th Jan 04:38PM:
Re: Karl...

I'm not sure anybody should take these results too seriously. Services differ so drastically by geography and yes, billing and billing support for several of these well ranked companies is absolutely atrocious....
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rawgerz @ 9th Jan 04:54PM:
Re: What's fiber exactly?

At least we know the reality though huh?
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ptrowski @ 9th Jan 04:55PM:
Re: What's fiber exactly?

said by rawgerz :

At least we know the reality though huh?
Exactly. Hell even U-Verse fiber is limited to the same speeds that other U-Verse users have.
--
"So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb."

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RadioDoc @ 9th Jan 05:00PM:
Re: What's fiber exactly?

"Greenfield" U-Verse builds are FTTH but yeah, calling the vast majority of the deployment fiber is pretty dumb. As dumb as cable companies trying to pass off coax as fiber.
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RadioDoc @ 9th Jan 05:02PM:
Re: Karl...

Got to spend 50 minutes listening to Comcast's loverly royalty-free hold music loop on Wednesday, so the are still valiantly shooting for the bottom of the customer-service pile.
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Markie @ 9th Jan 05:12PM:
Worthless trash...

Consumer Reports consistently gets things horribly wrong. I remember once when they said RCA HDTVs (this was back in the day of analog HDTVs with connections not standardized) only had a "proprietary connector only used by RCA" - or something to that effect. They had a VGA input! (whereas most TVs had RCA components which did catch on to be fair, but VGA is hardly proprietary).

And many other downright idiotic things. Consumer reports is meaningless fluff written by experts who like to think they know something and sometimes like to slander companies just for fun.

Remember the Suzuki Samurai and how rollover prone it was? Well, if you do you remember a lie - Consumer Reports WANTED it to roll over and couldn't get it to on their test track. Editorial director Erwin Landau told their test track driver "if you can't find someone to roll this car, I will"

The car was fine, and Suzuki later got an undisclosed settlement for the slander surely not beginning to approach their lost business and reputation.
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hbk4099 @ 9th Jan 05:26PM:
dont buy it

they ranked cablevision sixth in this study however by their own chart the red with the dot is the best mark you can get an excellent. Cablevision is the only provider with multiple execellent and has 3 of them, and for terminiatio fee the only place it ranks a good, doesnt make sense either because cablevision has ZERO termination fees.
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fiberguy @ 9th Jan 05:29PM:
Re: What's fiber exactly?

It's all a hybrid service so long as you have coax jumpers in your home as well.

If it were truly 100% fiber, you'd use optical or HDMI direct to the TV.. not all people are doing that and there is no fiber link from an ONT to the box that I'm aware of either.

It's all in how you want to view it.
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anon @ 9th Jan 06:08PM:
Re: Karl...

What???????????
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RadioDoc @ 9th Jan 05:42PM:
Re: Worthless trash...

"meaningless fluff written by experts who like to think they know something and sometimes like to slander companies just for fun"

Very much like many of this website's commenter writers.
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Titus Pullo @ 9th Jan 05:45PM:
Comcast support

I've yet to see a survey that doesn't trash Comcast's support, and yet this is what part of the billing increases are supposedly going towards.

Someone should teach those bozos how to spend money from rate increases (besides giant top-tier pay increases and junkets) and be done with it.
--
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ArgMeMatey @ 9th Jan 05:51PM:
Re: Worthless trash...

said by Markie :

Consumer Reports consistently gets things horribly wrong.

I'd like to see your unedited tally of "things assessed" vs. "things gotten horribly wrong". They have made well-documented mistakes but if they consistently got things horribly wrong they would be out of business.

Maybe they could benefit from some competition in the subscriber-supported, no advertising product assessment niche, but since there are usually only one or two "best buys", and only one #1, it's fair to say most manufacturers and service providers wouldn't mind if Yonkers were wiped off the face of the earth.

Their weakness in things like triple plays and other regional services such as mobile phone, grocery stores, and restaurants is that they don't sample large enough clusters to get good consistent observations. That is more a function of trying to appeal to a national audience and having to decide what to spend money collecting. (And as somebody else already pointed out, at this point in history there are huge differences in installation crews, call center staff and probably even the quality of billing subroutines for different services.)
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massysett @ 9th Jan 06:18PM:
"AT&T U-Verse isn't technically fiber optic broadband."

Why not? Becuase you deem the fiber running to the node to be unimportant, while the copper running to the house trumps all?

Why then, isn't FiOS not "technically fiber optic broadband"? My computer doesn't have a fiber optic terminal. It uses a copper Cat 5 cable.

What CR said was perfectly, technically accurate. They said it is fiber optic "based." UVerse has fiber optics. The bigger point is that what they said is irrelevant. If they can deliver broadband through a cotton string, that is fine. The services matter, not the substance of the cable running under the street. I do not understand this geek fetish with fiber optics.
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cdru @ 9th Jan 06:40PM:
Re: dont buy it

I noticed something similar. Verizon scored the highest, but scored worst in 2 of the 4 categories, poor to worst in 1, and only average in the other.
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ITALIAN926 @ 9th Jan 07:06PM:
Re: dont buy it

If you guys had any sense, you would know that the charts are cut off. Theres more to FioS than customer support.
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Karl Bode @ 9th Jan 07:16PM:
Re: "AT&T U-Verse isn't technically fiber optic broadband."

Why not? Becuase you deem the fiber running to the node to be unimportant, while the copper running to the house trumps all?
No, because fiber to the node is VDSL2 and fiber to the node.
They said it is fiber optic "based." UVerse has fiber optics.
Everybody has fiber optics. By that logic, everybody's service is "fiber optic based."

There is a difference between FTTH and FTTN. For Verizon and AT&T, it's a difference of about 17-18 billion dollars spent.
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rawgerz @ 9th Jan 07:57PM:
Re: What's fiber exactly?

Coax in the home isn't even an issue yet when the copper last mile is at it's limits. I think most incumbents run fiber to the node at least these days. So i don't see why uverse is so special besides the tv option.
--

You can't make all the people happy all of the time. But it should be common sense to shoot for the majority.
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RadioDoc @ 9th Jan 08:02PM:
Re: What's fiber exactly?

The difference is that it is all IP based.
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fiberguy @ 9th Jan 08:36PM:
Re: What's fiber exactly?

To be honest, I don't really care. Actually, I've got a long standing argument against what I just stated actually. There was a HUGE uproar on this very site in a threat that counted well over 200 messages several months back regarding Comcast and how CDV wasn't truly digital since it had to convert to a twisted pair at the eMTA.

My long argument was that if it terminated on the customer premise as "x" service, then it's what ever it is.

**If the service drop to the home is fiber, then it's fiber. **
Cable stating they have a fiber network is dishonest except to the point that they really should call it a hybrid fiber network, which is what it is.. driven by fiber though.

ATT u-verse, to me, is nothing more than cable that uses twisted pair... IP based or not.

**If the service drop to the home provides all digital to the termination block, then it's still digital.**

Therefore, Comcast CDV is a "digital service" where Qwest calling their phone service "digital" when it still travels as analog over a few miles of twisted pair in the hood is NOT "digital" simply becuase their back hail and CO's are.

So with all that said, yes, I do actually stand behind FiOS as a fiber service. I do stand behind comcast as a digital service over a Hybrid Fiber system.. I do not stand behind Qwest calling the phone service "digital" since the drop and feed system is still largely analog and affected by interference and there is no termination point at the home converting digital to analog in the drop system.

The funny thing, however, is that if I made my post the opposite than I did, I'd have been bashed by SOMEONE for taking the other side as I have in the past.

Just goes to show that some people here, can be real a*ses have have something to prove, even with those that actually know what they're talking about AND put their hands on the technology, unlike themselves.

Anyway.. back to BBR.
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rawgerz @ 9th Jan 08:53PM:
Re: What's fiber exactly?

fios uses Ethernet or coax in homes. So it's not even pure fiber under your guideline.

Even if I could get fios, I wouldn't praise it beyond the better uploads. One of their greatest incentives to do it is there are no laws saying they must allow ILECs use their fiber drops. And the way I see it is if they are allowed to get taxpayer dollars to fund building their network (philly), they should be forced to allow ILECs to compete on the infrastructure the taxes paid for.
It's already expensive on the lowest plan as it is. Not for the speed, but for the lowest tier possible.
--

You can't make all the people happy all of the time. But it should be common sense to shoot for the majority.
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en102 @ 10th Jan 01:46AM:
Re: Karl...

Unfortunately, Uverse is a little out to lunch on many parts here in Los Angeles - Uverse Internet + TV, phone is by POTS only.
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IGGY @ 10th Jan 07:35AM:
Re: Karl...

"You just don't get great ratings in those magazines without doing anything."

While some people may question the results for various reasons. I think most people would consider Consumer Reports fairly unbiased over the years. The taking no advertising may just be a marketing ploy but I don't think it is. At the very least it takes some of the pay to play aspect out of the equation. Unless you aware of something the rest of us aren't.

I would agree that some sites have questionable reviews do to who they accept advertising from. But this isn't always the case. I can tell you that over the years I've been critical of many companies that help pay my bills some months.
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anon @ 10th Jan 09:06AM:
Re: "AT&T U-Verse isn't technically fiber optic broadband."

The way I see it is that if the service runs as it is advertised it is doing its job and who cares about what its running off... Now with that said I have U-VERSE and it is sucking right now... I have the 2wire router and it loves to shut down when the treadmill is turned on or even when it doesn't want to play anymore.. I have ran tracert and found that I have had consistent inconsistencies with particular Ips (time outs)and one that is consistent with 100% packet loses 100% of the time and ATT wont do anything about it. Now that is bad customer service. They keep blaming it on my computer and I have done everything that they wanted me to do from redoing my o/s to clear cache out of IE every time I call in.. Im ready to go to comcast for my internet, the next and only option here in Grand Rapids, MI. The problem with that is that comcast is having problems as well. The bottom line is that they need to get there stuff together..
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anon @ 10th Jan 12:51PM:
Re: "AT&T U-Verse isn't technically fiber optic broadband."

Sounds like a grounding issue if it's taking a dive when the treadmill turns on
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aefstoggaflm @ 10th Jan 04:51PM:
Re: What's fiber exactly?

said by rawgerz :

fios uses Ethernet or coax in homes. So it's not even pure fiber under your guideline.

I was talking to some people that I know (relatives and what not)..

Only somewhere in Texas do they get fiber all the way to the computer/tv set. To be exact: the type of cable connected to the computer/tv set is Firewire (IEEE 1394).

Please note:

#1 I can not tell where in Texas, or how much of Texas

#2 When other Cities/States will also use Firewire (IEEE 1394) to the computer/tv set.

#3 And I can tell you if which is which. It is Firewire (IEEE 1394) to the computer, Firewire (IEEE 1394) to the TV set OR BOTH.

#4 And the reason as to why: I do not recall OR I do not know.
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K2NNJ @ 10th Jan 10:10PM:
CR Individual Ratings for Internet, Phone and TV

Here's the rest of the ratings
CR - Interne···e_TV.pdf
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Rickz0rz @ 11th Jan 12:10AM:
Re: What's fiber exactly?

Firewire isn't fibre optic cable?
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fiberguy @ 11th Jan 03:41AM:
Re: What's fiber exactly?

No.. it's not fiber optic... its metal.
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