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A Community-Run ISP Is the Highest Rated Broadband Company In America (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: A new survey by Consumer Reports once again highlights how consumers are responding positively to [community-run broadband networks]. The organization surveyed 176,000 Consumer Reports readers on their experience with their pay TV and broadband providers, and found that the lion's share of Americans remain completely disgusted with most large, incumbent operators. The full ratings are paywalled but available here to those with a Consumer Reports subscription. All the usual suspects including Comcast, Charter (Spectrum), AT&T, Verizon, and Optimum once again fell toward the bottom of the barrel in terms of overall satisfaction, reliability, and value, largely mirroring similar studies from the American Customer Satisfaction Index.
One of the lone bright spots for broadband providers was Chattanooga's EPB, a city-owned and utility operated broadband provider we profiled several years back as an example of community broadband done well. The outfit, which Comcast attempted unsuccessfully to sue into oblivion, was the only ISP included in the study that received positive ratings for value. "EPB was the top internet service provider in our telecom ratings two times in the past three years," Christopher Raymond, electronics editor at Consumer Reports told Motherboard. "Consumer Reports members have given it high marks for not only reliability and speed, but also overall value -- and that's a rare distinction in an arena dominated by the major cable companies," he said.
One of the lone bright spots for broadband providers was Chattanooga's EPB, a city-owned and utility operated broadband provider we profiled several years back as an example of community broadband done well. The outfit, which Comcast attempted unsuccessfully to sue into oblivion, was the only ISP included in the study that received positive ratings for value. "EPB was the top internet service provider in our telecom ratings two times in the past three years," Christopher Raymond, electronics editor at Consumer Reports told Motherboard. "Consumer Reports members have given it high marks for not only reliability and speed, but also overall value -- and that's a rare distinction in an arena dominated by the major cable companies," he said.
Can't have communities in charge of stuff. That's communism, that is. And the community making people who use the community's resources pay their part of it is violence, I tell ya. Violence. How dare communities not provide things for free(loaders)?
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
A LOCALLY run, COMMUNITY based ISP, where those that run it, LIVE in the community, are ACCOUNTABLE to the community, actually runs it correctly? Shiver-me-timbers! Wish more cities would do this and kick out the mega-corp-don't-care ISP's.
We've been paying hundreds of billions to the telecoms through a Universal Subscriber Fee for decades, and NO ONE (except the telecom shareholders) has ever gotten anything for that money.
Google Fiber was actually ranked second. I'm not surprised by that at all. Their customer service has been fantastic, as has the internet and TV. The two times I've had an issue, they had metrics to show exactly what was wrong from their end and their support rep understood the problem and could interact directly with the engineers.
On the other hand, Comcast required more than 3 calls to bury the outside cable line after it was replaced (it was supposed to be buried automatically with a second crew after the tech left, but he didn't file the right paperwork), and when I called customer service, one representative told me he was going to "reset my modem to resolve the issue". Yeah, apparently resetting modems can bury cable lines underground now, folks...
-=Lothsahn=-
Well, imagine that. Apparently when you are beholden to your customers rather than your shareholders, your customers think you do a better job at it.
And let's see. $111 million divided by 340 million... 33 cents, on average.
The highest paid person in the US earns something like $23 million a year before bonuses, although I did hear of someone earning $54 million before bonuses.
Somehow, I doubt you paid even the 33 cents.
You probably lose more than that in a year from defective vending machines and misplaced change.
Instead, you could have invested it in a stronger America with (gasp) jobs and stuff.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)