Most People Still Aren't Happy With Their Internet, But It's Getting Better

The American Customer Satisfaction Index has released its annual survey, based on over 25,000 customer interviews, revealing how we really feel about our internet service providers. The good news for ISPs -- things are trending up. Overall, ISPs scored 71 on the ACSI's 100-point scale -- an increase of three points over 2023 and the highest score since the ACSI started measuring ISPs in 2013. The not-so-good news? Internet service providers still rank at the bottom of the index, just ahead of subscription TV services, but below notably unpopular industries such as airlines, hospitals, US postal service and social media companies.

If you dig into the numbers -- and we have, given that we incorporate them into our methodology for reviewing internet providers -- they tell a more nuanced story. Last year was the first time the ACSI broke out customer satisfaction into fiber and nonfiber categories, and that continued this year. Unsurprisingly, ISPs that offer fiber internet service, which is faster and more consistent than other types of internet connections, scored significantly higher, notching a 76 compared with 68 for nonfiber ISPs. Still, only half of US households have access to fiber, according to the Fiber Broadband Association. And though national and regional telecoms continue to expand its reach, fiber's rollout has been slow and concentrated in larger cities and metro areas.

The ISP with the highest customer satisfaction score is AT&T Fiber, which edged out the popular service, Verizon Fios, which took the second spot. CenturyLink Fiber (now branded as Quantum Fiber), Frontier Fiber and Google Fiber all tied for third place. These findings align closely with our perspective: Verizon Fios, Google Fiber and AT&T top our overall list of fiber providers, though our recommendations vary by specific location. We have, after all, reviewed internet service providers in over 400 cities in the US.

CNET has found fiber to be more reliable, less susceptible to disruptions during peak usage times and, most importantly, extremely fast for uploading and downloading data. In fact, many national ISPs now boast multi-gigabit plans, and Ziply Fiber even has a 50-gigabit tier. I don't know that anyone needs service that fast, but it sure sounds cool.

Though fiber plans tend to be more expensive than cable internet service, the price gap is closing. Cable internet service plans usually start around $25 to $30 per month; fiber plans typically start at approximately $50 but can be considerably more expensive. That noted, fiber generally delivers a lower cost per megabit than other connection types.

Among nonfiber providers, T-Mobile Home Internet and Verizon 5G Home Internet took the two top spots in ACSI's 2024 ranking and scored considerably higher than the average nonfiber internet provider. "5G satisfaction scores were on par with fiber in some regions," Forrest Morgeson, director of Research Emeritus at the ACSI, said in a press release. The two companies' 5G fixed wireless services consistently rank among the best services in many of the hundreds of cities CNET has evaluated as well.

The provider with the lowest ACSI score in this year's field was Kinetic by Windstream, which got tagged with a 56 score, a whopping 20% drop from last year. It's hard to tell exactly why there was such a precipitous drop, but the ACSI findings note that call center satisfaction was the lowest-rated area among all ISPs, so that certainly figured into the poor ranking.

As we continue to monitor how ISPs are doing with customers this year, next up will be Ookla's findings on the first half of 2024, which is due sometime in July, and then a few months later, we'll get the J.D. Power annual survey, which is typically published in the fall.