FCC Complaint Data
The following is excerpted from an article on page 9 of the July 2005 Consumer Reports. Yes, July 2005 - It arrived in my mailbox on June 2nd.
Cell-phone complaints: A sorry picture for Cingular/AT&T
Complaint data obtained by Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports and ConsumerReports.org, from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) show that Cingular and AT&T, which combined last year to form the nation's largest wireless phone company, have the worst combined complaint record for 2004. AT&T alone has had the worst complaint record two years running.
The graph below shows total complaints per million customers for every wireless carrier that had more than 1 million customers at the end of 2004. It also breaks out complaints related to billing and service problems, two chronic sore points with consumers.
The combined Cingular/AT&T, with 49 million customers at year's end, had the worst complaint rate--288.9 per million. That's nearly four times the rate for Verizon Wireless, the nation's second-largest carrier with almost 44 million subscribers. One major factor behind AT&T's poor showing last year: complaints about problems with number portability, or moving a cell-phone number to another carrier. It was widely reported last year that AT&T customers had an especially difficult time moving numbers.
Smaller regional carriers, such as Alltel and U.S. Cellular, had some of the lowest complaint rates. But Cellular One, another regional company, had the second-worst rate for total complaints and for billing problems. Alltel has announced plans to buy Cellular One.
The FCC data track with the Consumer Reports Ratings of wireless carriers. Cingular and AT&T earned mediocre scores in the Ratings we published in our February 2005 report on cell-phone carriers (available to subscribers); Verizon Wireless fared better. The Ratings were based on a fall 2004 survey of subscribers to ConsumerReports.org. The FCC accepts complaints but does not routinely publicize complaints by carrier. Consumers Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain them.
If you're considering a change of wireless carrier, you may want to look first to Verizon. It had the lowest number of complaints per customer among national carriers, and among all the carriers, relatively few complaints about service quality and billing."
Cell-phone complaints: A sorry picture for Cingular/AT&T
Complaint data obtained by Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports and ConsumerReports.org, from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) show that Cingular and AT&T, which combined last year to form the nation's largest wireless phone company, have the worst combined complaint record for 2004. AT&T alone has had the worst complaint record two years running.
The graph below shows total complaints per million customers for every wireless carrier that had more than 1 million customers at the end of 2004. It also breaks out complaints related to billing and service problems, two chronic sore points with consumers.
The combined Cingular/AT&T, with 49 million customers at year's end, had the worst complaint rate--288.9 per million. That's nearly four times the rate for Verizon Wireless, the nation's second-largest carrier with almost 44 million subscribers. One major factor behind AT&T's poor showing last year: complaints about problems with number portability, or moving a cell-phone number to another carrier. It was widely reported last year that AT&T customers had an especially difficult time moving numbers.
Smaller regional carriers, such as Alltel and U.S. Cellular, had some of the lowest complaint rates. But Cellular One, another regional company, had the second-worst rate for total complaints and for billing problems. Alltel has announced plans to buy Cellular One.
The FCC data track with the Consumer Reports Ratings of wireless carriers. Cingular and AT&T earned mediocre scores in the Ratings we published in our February 2005 report on cell-phone carriers (available to subscribers); Verizon Wireless fared better. The Ratings were based on a fall 2004 survey of subscribers to ConsumerReports.org. The FCC accepts complaints but does not routinely publicize complaints by carrier. Consumers Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain them.
If you're considering a change of wireless carrier, you may want to look first to Verizon. It had the lowest number of complaints per customer among national carriers, and among all the carriers, relatively few complaints about service quality and billing."
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Sorry, I should have mentioned that the next-to-last paragraph of the original post was not in the print version of the magazine. Rather, it was in the online consumerreports.org (subscription only) version.
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thank you for wasting our time by putting this on both the cingular and verizon boards
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I didnt think it was a waste of anybodies time, informative, and bad for cingular, good for verizon.
Looks like cingular may be the largest, but, the customers are not very happy... 😁
I for one am with verizon, and I am very satisfied with the service, both customer, and call.
Looks like cingular may be the largest, but, the customers are not very happy... 😁
I for one am with verizon, and I am very satisfied with the service, both customer, and call.
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Georgia1 said:
I didnt think it was a waste of anybodies time, informative, and bad for cingular, good for verizon.
Looks like cingular may be the largest, but, the customers are not very happy... 😁
I for one am with verizon, and I am very satisfied with the service, both customer, and call.
It was a waste. First, it's already been talked about to death. Very old news by this site's standards. Second, if you read carefully, you can see where the article constantly states that it was ATT's complaints that were the worst. They don't say anything to the fact that Cingular Orange had those complaints. Third, it's no surprise at all that the Consumer's Union found another way to promote Verizon. The...
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Man you just got that? That is way old news. Even the local news station here in So Cal already have had that story out like 2 months ago. I know it was posted here on Phonescoop as well. Come on f38urry keep up with the times.
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careful now...that type of comment sparked an all day flame fest in the cingular forum.
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DarkStar:
The FCC complaint data is actually very NEW news.
The February article was about a private survey of 39,000 Consumer Reports subscribers opinions of their respective service providers.
The July issue's article is about the Federal Communications Commission's complaint statistics, that are now on the public record.
The complaint statistics information had not been made public until only recently, when it was provided in response to Consumers Union's Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request of last winter.
The FCC complaint data is actually very NEW news.
The February article was about a private survey of 39,000 Consumer Reports subscribers opinions of their respective service providers.
The July issue's article is about the Federal Communications Commission's complaint statistics, that are now on the public record.
The complaint statistics information had not been made public until only recently, when it was provided in response to Consumers Union's Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request of last winter.
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f38urry said:
DarkStar:
The FCC complaint data is actually very NEW news.
The February article was about a private survey of 39,000 Consumer Reports subscribers opinions of their respective service providers.
The July issue's article is about the Federal Communications Commission's complaint statistics, that are now on the public record.
The complaint statistics information had not been made public until only recently, when it was provided in response to Consumers Union's Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request of last winter.
The complaint stats are from 2004. The article even points out that the majority of the complaints are inherited from ATT. ATT had more complaint...
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I don't mean to be rude but I am right and you are wrong. Read this Article.
https://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?n=1152 »
You can also check out the full article there as well.
Just admit it I win.
https://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?n=1152 »
You can also check out the full article there as well.
Just admit it I win.
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lets do this, just say who cares...People, use the wireless company that works best for you, if you dont have any complaints, then you are with the right company. If you have complaints, then it is time to change. We dont need to hear who is better, who sucks, who has more complaints, who lies, who uses questionable sales tactics, who marks the phones up more, who has better service, who has a better network, who has rollover, who has the coolest phones, who, you get the point, get what works for you, if it works best for you, then it is the best to you and that is all that matters. I have verizon, it works good for me, and it is the best for me, that does not mean it is the best for you.
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Its all about odds. What about ppl who want a cell phone and don't know which one to get. This information will help them who to try first. Just because you don't care about this information that doesn't mean that other ppl won't. I don't like Seinfield that doesn't mean other ppl don't
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I dont know how it helps anyone when you get these wars going on. You sit back and read the post's and you have people going back and forth all the time, no cingular is better, then you have someone else in the same post bashing cingular, and saying verizon is better, and then you think that is it, then someone from nextel comes on and says their service rocks. That is what I was getting at. When I first read this post before anyone had replied yet, I laughed and knew exactly what was going to happen, and to no surprise, it did, no one can make a informed decision when all the bashing goes on.
Here is what I propose, people wanting cellular service, check everybody out in your area that you can get, rank them from best to worst that wo...
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Here is what I propose, people wanting cellular service, check everybody out in your area that you can get, rank them from best to worst that wo...
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f38urry said:...
The following is excerpted from an article on page 9 of the July 2005 Consumer Reports. Yes, July 2005 - It arrived in my mailbox on June 2nd.
Cell-phone complaints: A sorry picture for Cingular/AT&T
Complaint data obtained by Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports and ConsumerReports.org, from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) show that Cingular and AT&T, which combined last year to form the nation's largest wireless phone company, have the worst combined complaint record for 2004. AT&T alone has had the worst complaint record two years running.
The graph below shows total complaints per million customers for every wireless carrier that had more than 1 million customers
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