Chris Monroe / CNET
Most Internet provider Offer your own modem and router hardware when you sign up for an internet plan. However, it is widespread technical advice that you are better off buying your own equipment. For starters, this could allow you to skip an unbearable rental fee for equipment. If you buy your own router, you also have the option to upgrade to something faster and easier to use, or to bring a useful upgrade like Mesh fabric or Wi-Fi 6 under your roof.
This argument is now supported by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which polls approximately 180,000 consumers each year about the products and services they use in dozens of industries and hundreds of companies. And the latest ISP numbers released earlier this week … well, they’re not great.
In particular, ACSI examined WLAN satisfaction at home for the first time this year, with a particular focus on how your experience of using your own hardware differs from standard ISP hardware. The survey looked at a number of different metrics, with consumers ranking each on a scale of 1 to 100. Score by score, customers using their own hardware have the edge.
The biggest gap in happiness was with the cost. Consumers using their own network hardware rated their satisfaction with the value of their purchases as 72 out of 100. Those using the ISP hardware rated the value as 66.
Other metrics were closer, but the ISP hardware lagged behind in each category. Customers who bought their own modem or router were more satisfied with how quickly the devices restarted (74 versus 69 for the ISPs), satisfied with the reliability of the service (75 versus 71 for the ISPs), and satisfied with the reach (75 versus 72 for ISPs). . Both types of customers reported approximately the same level of satisfaction with the security of their networks (75 for third-party hardware versus 74 for ISP hardware).
It’s not all bad news for ISPs. This year’s overall customer satisfaction score of 65 in this category increased 4.8% year over year, with eight of eleven ISPs showing improvements. Comcast Xfinity posted the largest jump, climbing 8% to third place from 66, while Verizon Fios improved 4% to the best in its class from 73.
“ISP customers were more satisfied with the variety of available Internet offerings this year and found the Internet service to be more reliable,” said David Vanamburg of ASCI. “If ISPs can make progress in these areas, there is no reason why they cannot make similar profits in the hardware department by offering cheaper device rental prices and improving the reliability of WiFi at home.”
Look at that:
How to speed up your WiFi
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However, the improvement was only sufficient to bring ISPs to the penultimate place among the ASCI-rated industries. With the exception of the quality of mobile apps (79) and reliability (77), most benchmarks for this category remain relatively low according to the ASCI.
When ACSI asked about overall Wi-Fi quality satisfaction, it was Verizon Fios’ hardware that came out on top with 77 out of 100 points. It was the only ISP that defeated the leading third-party manufacturers. Next came Netgear and TP-Link, who each scored 75 points, and Linksys, who scored 73 points. Comcast Xfinity, another ISP, was right behind with 72 points, followed by Asus (71).
ASCI’s full 2019-2020 telecommunications report can be found here.