J.D. Power Surveys Find Cable Lags Video Rivals In Customer Scores

Cable companies continue to lag behind satellite-TV and telco-TV rivals in the latest J.D. Power and Associates customer satisfaction study of residential TV service.

Cable firms’ Internet and telephone services rated relatively higher than their video products did in the new J.D. Power customer-satisfaction studies in those residential categories. But Verizon and cable overbuilder WOW! topped the regional lists in those categories, as well.

J.D. Power released residential survey results for all three legs of the triple play on Thursday.

Among television service providers in the North Central Region, the top five were AT&T U-verse, Dish Network, DirecTV, WOW! (WideOpenWest) and Bright House Networks. After them came Xfinity (Comcast), Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable.

In the South region, the top five were DirecTV, AT&T U-verse, Dish Network, Verizon FiOS TV and Bright House Networks. After them came Cox Communications, Suddenlink, Xfinity, Charter and TWC.

In the West region, the top five were Dish, FiOS TV, DirecTV, U-verse and Cox. After them came Xfinity, TWC, Charter and Mediacom Communications.

And in the East region, the top five were FiOS TV, Dish, DirecTV, Cox and Optimum (Cablevision), followed by Xfinity and TWC.

The J.D. Power residential Internet service provider rankings found that, in the East Region, the top five performers were Verizon, Optimum Online (Cablevision), AT&T, Cox and Xfinity, followed by TWC and Frontier Communications.

In the West, the top five performers were Verizon, AT&T, Cox, Xfinity and CenturyLink, followed by TWC, Charter and Mediacom.

In the South, the top five performers were Verizon, AT&T, Bright House Networks, Suddenlink and Cox, followed by Xfinity, Charter, TWC, Windstream and CenturyLink.

And in the North Central region, the top five performers were WOW!, AT&T, Xfinity, Cincinnati Bell and Charter, followed by TWC, CenturyLink and Frontier.

As for residential phone service, the J.D. Power survey found, in the East region, the top five performers were Verizon, Cox, Optimum, AT&T and Xfinity, followed by Frontier and TWC.

In the West, the top five were Verizon, Cox, AT&T, Xfinity and CenturyLink, followed by Charter, Frontier and TWC.

In the South, the top five were Verizon, Bright House, AT&T, Cox and Windstream. After them came Charter, Xfinity, CenturyLink, Xfinity and TWC.

Finally, in the North Central region, the top five were WOW!, AT&T, Cincinnati Bell, Xfinity and Charter, followed by TWC, CenturyLink and Frontier.

Kent Gibbons

Kent has been a journalist, writer and editor at Multichannel News since 1994 and with Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He is a good point of contact for anything editorial at the publications and for Nexttv.com. Before joining Multichannel News he had been a newspaper reporter with publications including The Washington Times, The Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Journal and North County News.