Getty Images | Yuichiro Chino
Fiber-to-the-home internet service is the clear favorite among US broadband users, but unfortunately, most people in the US don’t have access to the technology, the American Customer Satisfaction Index said today.
“Fiber provides a strong advantage across the entire customer experience, from data transfer speeds and service reliability to touchpoints such as call centers and websites,” said Forrest Morgeson, ACSI director emeritus of research and Michigan State University. University Marketing Professor. press release announcing the latest ACSI research. “So with more than half of US households lacking fiber optic Internet access, access remains a sticking point. As such, non-fiber ISP services remain an attractive option for many customers and should not be overlooked by providers.”
One reason customers like fiber is that it offers higher download speeds than cable and other technologies. But cable companies dominate the U.S. broadband market. Leading US cable companies had 76.2 million broadband subscribers at the end of Q1 2023, according to Leichtman Research Group. The leading wireline companies had 30.8 million Internet subscribers, including both fiber and slow DSL.
Fiber is available to 38% of the US
In terms of availability, the Federal Communications Commission’s broadband map shows that about 38 percent of US residents can get fiber. The percentage drops to 29 percent when including fiber-only services that offer gigabit download speeds and at least 100 Mbps upload speeds. The FCC map identifies 114 million locations where fixed broadband can be installed, including homes and businesses.
ACSI measures customer satisfaction in multiple areas using a 100-point scale. The new ACSI Telecoms Study 2022-2023 is based on interviews with 22,061 customers randomly selected between April 2022 and March 2023, the group said. The study also examines streaming video and traditional subscription television services offered by cable companies.
All fiber providers combined had an average customer satisfaction score of 75, while non-fiber ISPs (including wireless home Internet services) averaged 66. Fiber also outperforms non-fiber in customer ratings of specific performance categories, including video streaming quality, Internet service quality, data transfer speeds, outages and peak-hour performance.
“AT&T Fiber leads fiber providers and the entire industry with a score of 80,” according to ACSI. “Next is CenturyLink Fiber at 78th, followed by Google Fiber (76th). CenturyLink is also known as Lumen after a recent name change.
In the fiber category, the “all others” group, which consists of smaller fiber providers, received a score of 75 on a 100-point scale. Verizon FiOS also scored a 75. While Frontier Fiber and [Comcast] Xfinity Fiber completes fiber providers at 74 and 73, respectively,” ACSI said.
AT&T loves fiber, but it doesn’t roll it out everywhere
AT&T operates the nation’s largest consumer fiber network and reports 7.5 million fiber broadband subscribers. Including slower AT&T broadband products like DSL, the company has 13.9 million customers.
AT&T has room to grow its customer base, as the network has “the ability to deliver fiber to 19.7 million consumer and more than 3 million business customer locations in more than 100 US metro areas,” and the company “remains.”[s] by the end of 2025, there will be 30 million fiber locations,” says AT&T.
But millions of homes in AT&T territory are stuck with slower copper-based DSL, and AT&T wants many of them to switch to fixed wireless instead of fiber because the telco won’t deploy fiber everywhere in its territory.
Verizon’s fiber service, known as FiOS, has 6.8 million Internet subscribers.
In the ACSI report’s non-fiber home Internet category, the top-ranked providers were T-Mobile and AT&T. This excludes the companies’ more widely used cell phone offerings. T-Mobile offers wireless home Internet service, while AT&T offers DSL and wireless home Internet, both of which are classified as “non-fiber.”
“Among non-fiber providers, T-Mobile takes the top spot, improving 3 percent to 73rd. AT&T Internet is in second place, up 4 percent to 72, while ACSI newcomer Sparklight. [also known as Cable One] ranks third with 71. Kinetic by Windstream had the biggest gain, up 13 percent to 70, just edging out Xfinity (up 3 percent) at 68,” ACSI said.
The “all other” category of non-fiber providers had an average score of 66. Mediacom’s Xtream posted a score of 65, while Cox and Charter Spectrum both scored 64.
CenturyLink and Frontier DSL are not very popular
As expected, companies like CenturyLink and Frontier, which provide fiber in some areas and older DSL technology in other regions, had lower customer satisfaction scores for DSL. “Despite an impressive showing among fiber ISPs, CenturyLink is at the bottom of the non-fiber group, down 3 percent to 62. Frontier Communications is steady at 61,” ACSI said.
In last place was cable provider Optimum (aka Altice USA), which fell 2 percent to an ACSI score of 58.
In TV Analytics, video streaming services improved their average score from 74 to 77 year-over-year. Traditional subscription TV service offered by cable, satellite and telephone companies improved their average score from 66 to 69 in 2022 to 2023.
The FCC’s map shows that more than 7 percent of U.S. residential locations do not have access to wired or licensed fixed wireless service with download speeds of at least 25 Mbps and upload speeds of at least 3 Mbps. More than 10 percent do not have access to 100/10 Mbps service.
The search parameter “all wireline and licensed fixed wireless” excludes satellite, including Starlink, which claims to serve more than 99 percent of the country on the FCC’s map, despite having a waiting list in large parts of the US. Our reports have also shown that Comcast and other cable companies claimed to serve more locations than they actually did, though some of the false claims have since been removed from the map.
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