Verizon, Cox Lead JD Power ISP Rankings

According to the J.D. Power and Associates 2011 "U.S. Internet Service Provider Residential Customer Satisfaction Study," Verizon came out on top in two of four regions and second in a third region. Cox also scored well, leading one region and making the top three in two other regions.In the East Region, Verizon ranked highest, followed by Cox and AT&T. Verizon led again in the South Region, followed by Bright House Networks and Cox. In the North Central Region, WOW! ranked highest, followed by Insight Communications and AT&T. Cox ranked highest in the West Region, followed by Verizon and Comcast.The study is based on responses from 23,098 residential customers of Internet service providers nationwide.In other findings, the study indicates that the Internet speed customers expect to receive from their service provider is achieved 69% of the time and is exceeded 17% of the time, while 14% find their Internet speed to be below expectations. The proportion of customers who contact customer service has increased by 8 percentage points from 2010 to 39% in 2011. In addition, the number of customers reporting an outage has increased year over year to 34% from 27%. The study also finds that the percentage of customers who contacted customer service by telephone has increased to 92% in 2011 from 81% in 2010.