ISPs say their “excellent customer service” is why users don’t switch providers

Stares in local duopoly

Hahahahahaha.

Fuck. It's so fake it makes me feel sick, I hate large corporations, especially ones with monopolies. It's disgusting.

Not in NYC. Spectrum is my only option and they are flaky as hell

File fcc complaint.
- I'm sure the new orange flavored head will get right on it

shoutout to Andrews & Arnold, best ISP in the uk. I called to stop using them because I was leaving the country forever and they were like "good, what else do you want?" MFs gave zero shits and gave great high speed service.

https://www.aa.net.uk/

I live where there's 1 isp and 10 mobile/satellite providers

In Algeria no one switches because there's only one ISP.

Customers must be very happy!

I work for an ISP, we have 10 second to 3 minutes hold times before you're speaking to a real rep, we have had downtime 5 times since I started working for them 4 years ago for maintenance (upgrading hardware to support larger bandwidth in different areas), we sell 1Gbps symmetrical speeds with unlimited data for $50/mo, we have 50k customers (in a specific area) and 5 customer service reps. Customer service quality is definitely important, but providing a service with minimal issues and great prices, that's why the ISP I work for can get away with such a minimum amount of representatives and continue to get a 4.7 star rating on Google as an ISP.

It's fun working for a company like this because you get to see how 50k customers paying for 1Gbps only use 70-85Gbps at any given time on average lol, people think they need a lot of bandwidth when in reality they just need a better router for their local network's bandwidth. WiFi hasn't been a great tech so far honestly, Wi-Fi 6 made a lot of improvements, maybe with WiFi7/8 that changes though. Big name consumer routers like Netgear have been dropping the ball with quality for years, but they still rake in the cash because at one point they made really great hardware.

I've learned a lot about networking because of this job, and it's given me a really great perspective of how awful Comcast/Xfinity/spectrum and CenturyLink/QuantumFiber really are, how much they try to get in the pockets of the people who make the decisions for infrastructure in our cities, there were so many hate ads against the ISP I work for during an election season all paid for by Comcast and CenturyLink.

Anyways, customer service is great, but quality of service is much more important. Having both is a win all around.

1Gbps symmetrical speeds with unlimited data for $50/mo

God I wish I lived in the 2% or so of the geographic U.S. that had access to service like this. It's $116/mo here for Comcast's 1000/150Mbps service, capped at 1.2TB. Costs an extra $30 to remove that cap.
- I don't mean to make you feel bad but in my area in the USA I get 10Gbps symmetric for $40/month, through an ISP that has awesome support, provides a /56 IPv6 range to each customer, lets you use your own router, and is publicly pro net neutrality.
- And yet it gets worse the more rural you get. I know a buddy that lives 10 miles outside of the closest town and they can get up to 3Mbps. I know it gets even worse in the boonies. At least my cell service isn't terrible up there. It was pretty atrocious ~15 years ago.
- Canadian here. I got 500/500 for $50 cad after tax. 1000/750 is $65 but I'd have to upgrade my hardware.

"excellent customer service" is a really weird to state "monopolistic practices"

It’s a good way to say, “customer service that blocks the exit,” though!

Are ISPs transitioning to comedy now?

They've always been a joke

Most of the ISPs operating in my city's fiber network are reasonably good and the one I've chosen is honestly good, so from my personal point-of-view, that headline seems perfectly relatable.

I'm contractually obligated to take it in the ass from the only ISP in town.

NO it's because of the excellent customer service

USTelecom, which represents telcos such as AT&T and Verizon, said that "the competitive broadband marketplace leaves providers of broadband and other communications services no choice but to provide their customers with not only high-quality broadband, but also high-quality customer service."

That's so much bullshit in so little space that I'm surprised it didn't become a black hole.

competitive broadband marketplace

Represents multiple supposedly fierce competitors

I see the problem. Someone must've convinced them that opposite day was real in 4th grade, and they've been stuck that way ever since

Ya, and the reason I've never been in a car accident is cause I'm a fantastic driver, not because I've never owned a car...

ISPs are generally all equally as bad (except for Spectrum. They're probably the worst.). I stay with my ISP because they've never once complained about any of the torrenting I've done.

And where are they based?
That's true for the larger ISPs, but the smaller ones can be a lot better. I use a small ISP and their prices are far better than the big ISPs, plus their support is really good. Some cities have municipal fiber internet (where the city runs it) which is usually great as the city's motivation is to provide a good service to residents rather than to make money off of it.
Not to shill, but this is the primary reason why I've stayed with FIOS for the past few years. That and the fact that there are no contracts, it's just a flat fee, forever. No promotion period or anything, either.

I was lucky enough to have options after I moved a few years ago, and went with the smaller semi-local isp that offers better speeds for better prices, and no bullshit. The customer service is actually pretty good too. I hope more people get options like that, it felt so good to leave the big guys.

Welp, the gig is up. After all of these years we've been publicly pretending otherwise... these companies have finally seen through our charade. We no longer need to excitedly whisper to eachother in basements and bars, and other locals in the shadows, tales of how our local Internet service providers always go above and beyond for each and every one of us. Now they know we think of them not only as a part of our family, but also as one of our children, as kin, and with more esteem than our elders. Truly we are a blessed people. The future is bright my brothers, we can now rejoice openly in the sun the ISPs shine down unto us.

All infrastructure should be owned by the government

Or at least community cooperatives. Having no voice or say in how your fixed infrastructure is operated is asking to be exploited

My ISP's customer service is spectacular. It's literally THE reason I've stuck with my ISP the entire time I've lived here. Well, that and the fact that they're the only option.

The only reason I take their customer service up my ass is because it always sucks no matter what ISP I use.

The only reason I do it is because I have no other choice. For me it's either suffering with Comcast or using extremely shitty DSL (which is too slow for me to do my job properly). I live in a suburban area, but for some reason, my neighborhood has only one high speed option. And I know there are plenty of other people all over the country in the same predicament.

I audibly laughed.

if you want to listen to 35 minutes of annoying music, press 1. If you want to get insulted personally by an operator stay on the line

Every 5 minutes, at max volume:

YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US. ALL AVAILABLE OPERATORS ARE HELPING OTHER CUSTOMERS. PLEASE STAY ON THE LINE.

2 minutes later:

DID YOU KNOW <COMPANY> IS WORKING TO SAVE CUSTOMERS LIKE YOU MONEY? UPGRADE YOUR PLAN TO ULTIMATE TODAY AND SAVE! YOU CAN ADD BASIC CABLE TO YOUR INTERNET PLAN FOR FREE FOR 3 MONTHS. MAKE ANY SOUND AT ALL TO LEAVE THE SUPPORT QUEUE AND SPEAK WITH A NEW ACCOUNT SPECIALIST RIGHT AWAY.

returns to playing compressed elevator music through an old can
- And "we are experiencing higher than average call volumes. Please continue to hold". Every single time you call. That's not how averages work!
if you want to get insulted personally by an operator stay on the line

20 minutes later, a robot voice - Please wait, our attendants are busy. You are very valuable to us.
- Line is disconnected randomly.

TBF they are right in my case. I pay for my ISPs small business offer, which is the former state own ISP, because they are the only ones who get me proper customer service in a reasonable time. (With 8h next business days. I could live with a few days. But it's that or 4-8 weeks) And I need a static IPv4 which none offers for non-business customers anymore.

Damn. But that bill makes me cry every fucking month. Even fucking Starlink would be cheaper,but I do would get offline before giving money to Elon.

The reason I haven't switched is because I have no real alternatives. I could try a wireless service, but it would likely be a downgrade as signal is not the greatest in my area.

Bluntly: If you're fortunate, you'll have two options for internet. DSL and cable. Sometimes there's other "options" like a WISP or starlink, or even a dual up provider, but the speed comparison is not even close, so I usually discard most of those as viable either on ping time or bandwidth.

It's extremely likely that only one provider services your residence with DSL, and one provider does cable. Two providers. All other options are basically a wholesale or resale of these two providers, meaning you still get service from one of those two.

If you're extremely lucky, you'll also have the option of fiber. And IMO, that is the only time you really get three options.

If you go with a third party ISP, the last mile is still one of the two that actually come into your residence.

So the only real options you have are: do you want to buy internet direct from the ISP that owns the line to your house, or do you want to buy internet from someone who will contact that company to give you internet? If you don't like the DSL provider, and you don't like the cable provider, you're completely fucked. Gg everyone.

Depends on where you live. In the USA, I've got one cable (coax) option and three fiber options. My area has overhead power + utility cables rather than underground, so it was easy for ISPs to run extra fiber lines. In Australia, there's one network (the NBN - National Broadband Network) that the ISPs resell.
- I'm in Canada, fiber is fairly rare right now. Some big cities are getting it pushed into neighborhoods, and new condos generally only have fiber, but any home or residence that's over 5 years old probably still has CATV/coax and an analog telephone hookup.
  
  So with few exceptions, the majority of Canadians have the option of DSL, usually from Bell, which is still mostly dominating Canada for ownership of the PSTN wireline services (though some provinces are other companies, like Telus on the west coast, and SaskTel... In Saskatchewan). Even if you buy from another DSL ISP, the last mile is still Bell owned connections.
  
  Cable is a bit more diversified from area to area from what I've seen, one of the bigger providers is Rogers. Different areas can be other providers, Cogeco is pretty prevalent in the Niagara region near me; but the story is unchanged. If you go with another ISP for cable service at your residence, the local cable provider is delivering the last mile connection.
  
  In my area, there's a regional fiber provider, we have overhead lines, and I contacted that provider about getting service, and my home is not serviced by them. Interestingly, the addressees across the damn street (where the utility poles are located) are serviced by the local fiber provider.
  
  The local cable ISP, who I ended up getting service from, was able to quite easily run a cable over the road from the utility post to my residence without issue. Why the fiber provider can't, is beyond me.
  
  I'm lucky that there's even active fiber on my street that I could tap into if the company would run it over the road. Many places I've lived have either cable or DSL as the only options.
  
  I know many others are in a similar spot.

I'm gonna have to sue whoever said that to deal with the whiplash from my doubletake

The reason i don't switch is because the price is fair enough and i have less connection issues compared the all the others we have available.

Lol

I've only had one ISP with excellent service, and it was a small family-run one. It was pretty expensive, too. The rest have ranged from "ok I guess" to "oh my god, I vow never to deal with these shitcunts again for the rest of my days".

Besides, logically, if the ISPs really were a pleasure to deal with, then surely making it easy to switch would be welcomed, no? People would see how good your service is then switch to you.

Curious. Almost like they're chatting complete and utter bollocks.

If they all suck, are they all not doing exceptionally well? I, too, can make statistics say whatever I want. If you manipulate the data, then a lie will sell itself.

For me, it's the price, and effort involved with researching cheaper/better providers. Maybe once a year I'll look at competitors. If ISP raise price, that's when I more seriously look at competitors.

For me its that even if I pay for 1gb/down, it drops to around 25mb down. That was after I switched off spectrum, which I had 200 down, and would fall to 5mb/s down, and I would start to lose VoIP calls while using any amount of remote software. Would happen just about daily and one of the main times it would happen was around noon. Now I could have switched to a business line to see if I could get more guaranteed stable bandwidth, but honestly it's just bull shit that the infrastructure is that bad in the first place. I would like the FCC to mandate instead of max up/down speeds possible, that minimum up/down speeds (outside of outages, which outage time should be reported as well) as what is advertised. So instead of 1Gb/down for just $69.99/month, we see 50mb/s down minimum for $69.99/ month, and all times their infrastructure does not meet their advertized rate which you are paying for, is moved to $0. So you bill decreases based upon outages.

We can switch ISP???

For most normal people in most normal places: yes, you can.
Sure... You probably have the option of a wireless ISP that provides 1/10 the speed for 5x the cost.

In reality... no.

I used to live in an apartment that had an exclusivity deal with Xfinity/Comcast. We could only get Xfinity services. At my current house I do actually have a choice: Xfinity (cable or fiber), AT&T Fiber, or a local ISP (Sonic) that's much better.
No. You're welcome.

lol

I mean yeah, Virgin has been pretty solid in that regard for the 20 years I've used them, and their service has been solid too.

I'd be wary of switching to another company that doesn't have such a good proven track record, though due to prices I'm considering swapping to Brsk for a bit to see how they hold up, given that they have symmetric gigabit fibre to the house with static IP for a very nice low price.

We have 1 choice or nothing. If my ham sandwich suddenly provided bandwidth, id drop my isp in a heartbeat