That Consumer Reports Survey

A few days ago, Consumer Reports released the results of a survey indicating that AT&T is the worst cell phone carrier. To be honest, this is more sensationalist Consumer Reports nonsense aimed at selling magazines (at best). Consumer Reports has a history of manipulating results, as Suzuki learned. A perfectly good vehicle, the Samurai, was slandered by CR says it "rolls over easily" when the reality was that Consumer Reports had to modify the test track in order to get it to tip slightly when the editorial director demanded "If you can’t find someone to roll this car, I will." The sad thing is, CR won that media war and Suzuki's name is still rather tarnished in the US market.

More concerning than that incident, however, is their repeated incompetence. Talk to anyone who has knowledge in a subject field, and they'll tell you Consumer Reports' testing is very flawed. I remember laughing my head off when I read them claim that VGA was a "proprietary connector" on RCA TVs. It's true, most HDTV manufacturers (this was rear-projection CRT HDTV...) chose to use component. But that sure didn't make VGA proprietary. And it was clear they didn't know much at all if they didn't recognize VGA (which they never actually called VGA, they clearly didn't know what it was). If they don't know their stuff in a subject you have knowledge of, why do you think they would in any other subject?

Well, that's where this survey falls. Horrible testing methods making it less than meaningless. But it's a survey, you say. How could a survey not be meaningful? Simple, surveys are nonsense on such a media-covered topic. They suffer severe selection bias. "Everyone knows" AT&T sucks from the recent media coverage regarding their well-known network issues they've had in San Francisco and New York City. "Everyone knows" Verizon is the best from their very successful ad campaigns. Don't you think that might have a huge impact on how customers perceive a dropped all? AT&T customers might see it as typical, and it reinforces their bias. Verizon customers might see it as "eh, even the best has problems sometimes" and shrug it off.

Adding to this bias is the other question - what is the demographic of each type of customer? AT&T has a lot of iPhone customers. These are people who tend to be on the edge of wanting the latest, largest selection of mobile applications. They tend to be younger, I dare say, and have demands for always-on connectivity.

Finally, no results from somewhere else have any meaning on network quality in your area. All carriers have great areas and terrible areas. Try them out where YOU are.

Anyways, I guess my point is don't worry about this survey - especially if you're in an Alltel market being converted. We're getting a brand-new network build that's going to totally ROCK IT!