Smaller ISPs Have Happier Customers, UK Based Study Says (betanews.com)

Mark Wilson, writing for BetaNews: If you have eschewed the big names and opted for a smaller ISP, you probably have a happier broadband experience. These are the findings of a report which says the big four ISPs in the UK -- BT, Sky, Virgin Media and TalkTalk -- are rated lower than their smaller rivals. In fact, the highest rated provider, SSE, has only been in the broadband game since 2014, with Yorkshire-based Plusnet coming in second place, says Cable.co.uk. Of the big names, TalkTalk provides broadband to 13 percent of UK internet users, yet it scored just 6.66 out of 10 and placed in ninth position. The four biggest companies accounts for 87 percent of the market, but the best performer -- Sky -- only managed to hit fifth place.

Comments

Nature of smaller businesses...

[Junta]

Dominant players in the market tend to recognize ability to rest on their laurels, while smaller players tend to be more aggressively trying to win business. If they fail to do that, they'd go out of business.

Basically a company with prospects for growth will, on average, do better by their customers than a company without any prospect to grow.

Re:Nature of smaller businesses...

[TWX]

I don't think it's even that complicated.

When the end worker is so many middle-managers away from the people who think that they run the company, feedback from the bottom does not reach the top, and directives from the top do not reach the bottom. Scott Adams of Dilbert fame wrote about a quality initiative that was started at Pacific Bell when he worked there, the only noticeable difference that reached down to him as an engineer was that the word Quality appeared preprinted on their internal notepad stationery. The people at the very top of the company can make decisions that can hire or fire a bunch of workers, but the amount of hands-on influence is pretty small, and if their various levels of subordinate staff get their own ideas for what they are willing to do or should be doing then it's hard for upper management to affect change.

Likewise, if the people at the bottom of the org chart have problems that they really need to get addressed, those layers of middle management can obscure real problems and real suggestions from ever reaching up. This is ultimately what builds corporate culture. Lazy, dishonest, or inept middle managers can cause a lot of harm, especially when they're unwilling to do their jobs to deal with disciplinary problems or performance issues. It can take a lot of work to document when an employee needs demerits, and if someone isn't willing to do that then the problem employee can really harm the team.

If these kinds of problems become the norm then customer relations usually goes to hell.

Re:Not surprising

[TWX]

That is not necessarily a sign of being loved. Cox Communications is owned by the Cox family, it's private. It's still a very accurately named company though, based on my dealings with them.

Yup.

[Pig Hogger]

Yup. I love it when I have a problem with my tiny ISP; when I call them, it's the NOC that answers, and not a script monkey with a cute accent.

Zen Internet for the win.

[Arashi256]

I'm with Zen Internet. They're cheap, they give me a static IP address, they don't mind me running a Linux server off my connection and....lord be praised....when you call technical support you immediately get to speak to an honest-to-goodness engineer. AN ACTUAL ENGINEER. Somebody who knows the difference between a web address and an IP address and doesn't ask you to turn off your firewall as part of their checklist/script. They don't supply a router when you sign up, but they seem to know the admin screens of lots of different makes and basically talked me through configuring mine over the phone. I was a Sky customer for a week once when my previous small ISP got bought out by them. Never again.

Just wait for a SINGLE-PAYER ISP

[mi]

Smaller ISPs Have Happier Customers, UK Based Study Says

That's simply because they haven't tried a Single-Payer Provider — that's where the ultimate happiness resides.

Can confirm

[pak9rabid]

Back in college I worked tech support at the local small town ISP (San Marcos Internet, in San Marcos, TX, if anybody is wondering). It was about as two-bit of an operation as it could be. Although their transfer speeds couldn't come close to what the bigger players in town offered (TWC, Grande Communications), people absolutely LOVED us for the simple reason that we actually cared about our customers, which they found absolutely refreshing compared to the treatment they'd get from the bigger guys. We'd do things like have people bring their computers in so that we could fix all the fucked up things wrong with them (remove viruses, spyware, etc). Eventually they got scooped up by one of the bigger guys (Grande), which really pissed a lot of folks off.

Re:Can confirm

[Khashishi]

Hmm, and here I was thinking of Grande as a smaller guy. I'm in the situation where Google is unveiling fiber and heavily advertising, and I have to choose if I want to stay with Grande or go with the faster Google Fiber. I'm not sure if I want all my base are belong to Google.

What makes small companies better

[rsilvergun]

is that they're too small to realize the cost savings from screwing their customers over in little ways. A 10 minute wait isn't worth it for them. Ditto Saving $100 bucks on some switches by buying the cheap stuff. Those little costs savings are huge for a mega corp. Your lousy customer service is some mid grade VP's summer home.

Certainly true for me

[nicolaiplum]

My smaller ISP (Zen Internet, zen.co.uk) certainly provide good service.

When you can create a trouble ticket with your ISP advising them that they have a likely link problem causing packet loss and resulting traffic congestion in their peering with another ISP, including route traces from several directions, and they respond within 2 hours thanking you for the report and having fixed the problem - then you know they're the ones to be with.

They're also more than averagely resistant to media industry intimidation pass-through (they demand a court order, instead of just giving up info at a whim) and government surveillance (they don't sign up to "voluntary" Government initiatives for more inept censorship).

Re:If you're talking about making it a public util

[mjwx]

Maybe, you are hanging out with a healthier crowd. Canadians certainly do cross the Southern border for healthcare.

That article is complete bollocks in the way you're using it. Canadians are crossing the border for elective surgery that isn't covered by their universal health care... meaning people getting nose and boob jobs. Its the same as saying that Australians are fleeing to Thailand for medical care when in reality they're only going there to get their tits done at half the cost... Or Americans fleeing to the Philippines for dental care... Which is 100% true although out of context. A lot of Americans get non-emergency dental work done in the Phils.

You haven't found a critical flaw in the Canadian system, you found an article about medical tourism.

Meanwhile, unlike the Canadians, there are people in the US going without emergency care because your health care system is profit oriented, not service oriented.

And while you complain about sabotage of government-provided services, American healthcare system is an example of government's sabotage of private industry.

Now you're completely off your tree.

The private health care industry is a complete failure and the government is sabotaging itself by opposing measures to fix it (namely the Republicans trying to destroy the Affordable Care Act).

I live in the UK, I pay into National Insurance which covers all forms of social security. My yearly National Insurance payments cost less than health insurance for a single American. National Insurance does not just cover the NHS (health care) but also pensions, benefits and care for the sick... And it costs less than what you pay for medical insurance. Why... because the NHS is service oriented and does not need to make ever increasing profits. A UK doctor will not send you for unnecessary tests to bump up the profit margin, they wont prescribe unnecessary medicines to get a kick back from the pharmaceutical company. A UK doctors only concern is getting you back to health, if this means bed rest or a change in lifestyle, then that is what they'll prescribe.

Hell, your own article points out that the UK is the best nation on earth for health care. As for calling people names, it demonstrates two things. 1) you know your point is wrong and 2) have no idea what those words actually mean (this is evident because you use them out of context). It only makes you sound desperate and afraid.