Sprint and Verizon take top wireless quality honors

By Angela Gunn | Published March 23, 2009, 6:01 PM

CDMA for the call-quality win? The annual J.D. Power & Associates survey of wireless service quality has been released, and Verizon, US Cellular, and Sprint Nextel -- that's right, Sprint -- took top honors. The survey evaluated wireless call quality as measured in the number of problems (dropped connections, echoes and distortion, slow voice mail / text notification, static, or failure to connect) per 100 calls.

Service is, for J.D. Power's purposes, divided into six regions, and US Cellular stands alone in the North Central part of the country, winning its seventh consecutive nod there. Verizon won everywhere else (including its ninth consecutive best-of nods in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions), tying in the West with Sprint Nextel.

The survey, which looked at usage between July and December of last year, found that overall everyone's mobile service is improving, with just 5 problems per 100 calls separating the best and worst services. And Americans are noticing, with 27% telling surveyors that they have dropped their land lines entirely in favor of their mobile handsets. The survey also noted a major increase in the number of text messages the average user receives each month -- 98, up from 47 in the previous survey.

Needless to say, Sprint was happy to help spread the word, issuing a press release giving credit for the win to the company's high-profile attempts to improve customer experience. And hey, did you know they're going to be offering the Palm Pre soon? "Not only are our wireless networks performing very well, but we're also launching innovative devices, like the highly anticipated Palm Pre, on America's most dependable 3G network," said Sprint CEO Dan Hesse.

Survey results for all six regions are available from J.D. Power's site.

Comments

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I don't care what anyone says...Sprint stinks!!

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After 8+ years with Sprint and a year with AT&T plus a long ago year with Aerial, I'd say that Sprint was the best, as is CDMA call quality. Given my time with AT&T, I'd have to say that Sprint is far better but you're still welcome to your opinion.

AT&T is better than Aerial was, but GSM still hasn't proved to me that it's reliable, especially with all the dropped calls I've "enjoyed" on AT&T. I know that most of the world is using GSM but that doesn't make it better.

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Well, I have to add... I orignally had AT&T service for about 2 years, almost 8 years ago. I switched to sprint and have been with them ever since. The whole time, I have had a second cellular number for my work phone. My sprint service has hands-down been better than my AT&T/Cingular/AT&T service ever was. I have dropped calls on my AT&T number, but my sprint number nearly ALWAYS has service, and the call quality is pin-drop clear. Now I know some poeple have clearly had bad experiences with Sprint, whether it be service coverage or lousy customer service, but it has gotten far better. Even Alltel was better than AT&T.

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