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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
[...] As broadband connectivity becomes more and more integral to daily work and schooling habits, few ISPs are meeting our expectations. If we start to see increased competition, that might change.
Your industry may have a perception problem when it gets lower customer satisfaction ratings than the US Postal Service or even gas stations. But that's where internet service providers are now, with the recent release of the American Customer Satisfaction Index's Telecommunications Study for 2021-2022.
Among more than 45 different industries surveyed (including such wide-ranging trades as food manufacturing, life insurance, airlines, hotels, hospitals and social media), ISPs came in dead last for customer satisfaction, with a 64 rating on a zero to 100 scale. That's two points behind the next lowest industry (subscription TV services at 66) and a 1.5% loss over the previous year's performance.
Internet service providers bring up the rear in the latest ACSI list of customer satisfaction by industry.
[...] One other standout from the report is newcomer T-Mobile Home Internet, which hit the market in 2021 and debuted at second on the list with a score of 71. That bodes well for the fixed wireless option, which uses its 5G and 4G LTE networks to connect homes to the internet and aims to be a disruptor to traditional broadband providers (the tagline on its site is "Free yourself from internet BS"). If these scores are any indication, it and other newcomers might have a shot at success.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday June 17 2022, @08:17PM (1 child)
As someone living in a country with a really good public transport system in most cities and a completely fucked up one pretty much anywhere else, I can tell you that this is actually a sensible solution: If you have to get from the countryside to the city, get with your car to a place on the outskirts where you can leave it, then take the public transport across town. They did that here and it works pretty well. Yes, it's HEAVILY subsidized, to the point where the annual ticket is in the lower 3 digits, including a guaranteed and guarded parking space, seriously, driving into town, with the cost of parking and everything, is more espensive (and much slower in most cases) than leaving your car at the "park and ride [wikipedia.org]" stations and switching to public transport across town.
This of course requires a very dense and reliable public transport system so people accept it. If you have to wait for your bus for half an hour and then still walk for another 20 minutes, nobody is going to do that.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 17 2022, @08:44PM
Key: This of course requires a very dense and reliable public transport system so people accept it.
In Miami, I spent a summer commuting in from ~30 miles south of downtown to an office just over a small bridge from the downtown peoplemover. 15+ miles of that commute actually drove parallel to the MetroRail, but... to take the rail I would have to park in a big lot, walk 5+ minutes exposed to the weather, which was a torrential downpour about 10% of afternoons, ride the rail, transfer to the peoplemover, then walk another 5 minutes exposed across the bridge to work. The cost (1998) was $2.50 per day for the train, parking at my office was free - that was rare, but right there: $12.50 per week to park, walk, ride and walk, or just drive? The rainstorms pretty much clenched that decision.
But then, let's compare commute times in the two options: to drive and arrive at 8am, I would have to leave around 7:10, but... if I left home at 7:00 I would arrive around 7:40, leaving at 6:45, I would arrive around 7:15, and these shorter drive times were also considerably more enjoyable than the crush of traffic. To (reliably) make it to work at 8am using the train, I would have to leave home around 6:45, and be exposed to "the public" at close range all the way in and out from the station. Laying abed at 6:30am, thinking about options for the morning: get up now and take the train for $2.50 - possibly get soaking wet - and get to work just in time, or: lay abed another 20 minutes and drive in? Yeah, train lost that decision just about every single time.
Of course, the population of Miami continues to explode, and a quick google maps check of that commute today at 4:45pm tells me it will take 1hr 6min or more to travel the 30 miles. Trains look better and better, the worse the roads get.
🌻🌻 [google.com]