When it comes to customer satisfaction for fiber providers, AT&T is at the top of the pack, according to a new report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).
Among fiber-only providers, AT&T Fiber received an ACSI score of 80. The next highest customer ratings came from Lumen’s CenturyLink Fiber (78), Google Fiber (76) and “all others” (75), which ACSI indicated is a smaller group of fiber ISPs.
Rounding out the list are Verizon Fios, which saw its ACSI score increase from 72 in 2022 to 75 in 2023, Frontier Fiber (74) and Comcast’s Xfinity Fiber (73). An ACSI rep told Fierce that prior to this year, Verizon Fios was the only fiber provider measured by name, thus it’s the only ISP on the list with a 2022 score.
ACSI’s top-ranking fiber providers have lately been doubling down on fiber expansion. AT&T is targeting a few cities across Arizona and Nevada with its Gigapower joint venture, in partnership with BlackRock. Whereas Lumen just upped multi-gig coverage in its Quantum Fiber markets and Google Fiber announced several forthcoming builds.
ACSI’s report rates consumer satisfaction for both fiber and non-fiber ISPs as well as for video streaming services and apps. For this study, ACSI interviewed more than 22,000 customers at random between April 2022 and March 2023.
Among non-fiber ISPs, T-Mobile’s 5G Home Internet scored an ACSI ranking of 73. AT&T also scored favorably in this ranking (72), followed by Cable One’s Sparklight (71), Windstream’s Kinetic (70) – which saw its ACSI score jump 13% from 2022 – and Comcast’s Xfinity (68).
Trailing the lower end of the customer satisfaction rankings were Charter’s Spectrum (64), Lumen’s CenturyLink broadband (62), Frontier (61) and Altice USA’s Optimum (58%), which was the only ISP on the list to see its ACSI score decline from 2022.
For both fiber and non-fiber ISPs, respondents indicated they most valued the quality and the reliability of a provider’s mobile app. The ACSI spokesperson said those features were highly scored as “most ISPs [have] a good mobile app that is useful and reliable for those who use it.”
“Across the entire customer experience, fiber service shows a strong advantage — from data transfer speed and service reliability to touchpoints like call centers and websites,” stated Forrest Morgeson, director of Research Emeritus at the ACSI.
“That said, with well over half of U.S. households lacking access to fiber internet, availability remains a sticking point,” he added. “As such, non-fiber ISP services remain an attractive option for many customers and should not be overlooked by providers.”