Our survey of more than 9000 PC World subscribers and site visitors shows that cable Internet giants Cablevision, Time Warner, and Cox are impressing customers. Fiber-optic is a winner, too. But dial-up users are an unhappy lot as a whole.
#NOTES: Services are ranked by the total number of positive and negative ratings, and in case of a tie, alphabetically. Source: Survey of 9321 PC World readers and PCWorld.com visitors from June 7 to June 30, 2006.
Cable: Bigger Pipes
The technology behind each service is the biggest factor affecting customer satisfaction. So we've organized the latest data, with results from our survey, into sections on each of the most common connection methods, starting with the most widely used type respondents cited.
For most U.S. homes, the cable modem is the primary means of Internet access. However, its dominance will fade in coming years, say industry analysts. Currently more than 28 million U.S. households access the Net via cable, a number expected to climb to 37 million by 2011. By comparison, DSL, which currently serves about 22 million U.S. homes, will have nearly 39 million subscribers within five years, according to JupiterResearch.
Cable's advantage today is its wide pipe. Downstream speeds (the rate of data traveling from the Internet to a local computer) of 6 megabits per second are commonplace, and many cable providers offer even faster connections. Top-ranked Cablevision, for instance, supplies downstream speeds of 15 or 30 mbps. This superfast link appeals to Bob Murdoch, a flooring salesperson in Brielle, New Jersey, who pays $65 per month for Cablevision's Optimum Online Boost service, which costs $10 to $15 more than basic service. "They're blowing everybody's doors away with the speed and quality. I don't think I've had an outage in a year," says Murdoch, who reports getting 26 to 30 mbps downstream and 1.5 mbps upstream. In contrast, Murdoch's DSL connection at work tops out at 3 mbps downstream, roughly the average speed reported by DSL users in our survey.
Cablevision's megaspeedy service is more the exception than the rule. "You're not going to see anywhere near 15 mbps for 50 percent of U.S. households over the next five years," predicts Matt Davis, director of Consumer Multiplay Services for research firm IDC. "We're still struggling to get to a megabit [per second] in a lot of households in the U.S."
But other cable providers are boosting bandwidth. Comcast, the nation's leading cable ISP with more than 9 million broadband customers, recently introduced PowerBoost, a service that automatically doubles its users' bandwidth--from 6 to 12 mbps, or from 8 to 16 mbps--when necessary, for no extra charge. For most of the day, when the cable network isn't operating at peak capacity, the provider "uncaps" the user's modem via software commands, according to Comcast. The result is additional speed for downloading videos, games, and other hefty files.
"You'll get a boost of speed when downloading a large file or anything that would tax the capacity of a good connection," says Mitch Bowling, general manager of Comcast's online division. Bowling adds that Comcast may eventually offer a 30-mbps connection (at extra cost), but notes that extreme speeds may be overkill for the infrequent user. Our survey respondents already rate Comcast's speed highly--much higher than they rate the company on most other measures.
Cable's weakness? It's relatively expensive. For example, Comcast charges, on average, $43 a month for its 6-mbps service. DSL is often much cheaper. AT&T Yahoo charges new subscribers as little as $13 a month for one year of DSL, albeit with downstream speeds that max out at 1.5 mbps. You must sign up for local phone service to get the killer DSL deal, too. (For a month-to-month contract, AT&T Yahoo charges $35 per month.)
But don't expect to see a price war between cable and DSL. Introductory offers aside, "the deals may get a little bit worse if all you want from a provider is Internet access," says Joseph Laszlo, JupiterResearch senior broadband analyst. Rather, the good deals for customers will come in the form of bundled services.
Most cable and telephone companies offer bundles of two or more services. Comcast's Triple Play bundle, for instance, delivers phone, Internet, and digital TV service for $99 a month for the first year (but then the cost increases to $118 to $143, depending on the area).
Nearly 70 percent of the people who responded to our survey said that they purchase one or more other services from their ISP. And according to IDC, the number of U.S. customers buying bundles will nearly double from 43 million last year to more than 85 million in 2010.
Click the image below to see survey results on types of connectivity.
DSL: Broadband Bargain
DSL service is slower than cable on average, with home users typically getting downstream speeds that max out at 6 mbps--about where cable begins. Dirt-cheap prices, however, make DSL an ever more popular choice.
With DSL often costing as little as--or even less than--dial-up, will prices continue to drop? No. "They're pretty much at the threshold of what's doable from a business perspective," says JupiterResearch's Laszlo.
Corey Smith, an electrophysiologist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, has been an AT&T Yahoo customer for a little over two years. He pays $18 a month for the AT&T Yahoo Pro package, which tops out at 3 mbps. "It's been reliable, easy, and cheap, and it's a great deal for the price," Smith says. For him, DSL is the best broadband option, particularly because he doesn't have or want cable TV. Smith now pays $11 less per month than he did when he first subscribed to AT&T Yahoo--and his connection is faster.
But in some regions, DSL is far from perfect. Ralf Cross is a computer systems administrator in Charleston, Tennessee, a tiny town near Chattanooga with fewer than 800 people. Cross pays about $40 a month for BellSouth DSL, which delivers what she calls "intermittent" broadband service. "Sometimes you can connect, sometimes you can't," complains Cross, who believes the town's old phone lines are to blame. "You just kind of hobble along and say, 'Well, this is better than dial-up.'" But if cable broadband comes to Charleston, she says she'll switch ISPs in a second. BellSouth subscribers who answered our survey were, on average, satisfied with the service; however, the provider may soon merge with AT&T Yahoo, whose subscribers weren't nearly as happy in our survey.
Three-fourths of our survey respondents said it was "unlikely" that they would switch to a new ISP in the next six months. But of those who said they might, nearly a third, like Cross, said they want a more reliable connection.
Click the image below to see survey results on how much people pay for their broadband.
Fiber: The Future
Earlier this year, David Heyman of Bethesda, Maryland, signed up for Verizon's Fiber Optic Service (FiOS), which replaced his Verizon DSL line. For everyday Web surfing, his 5-mbps (downstream) FiOS connection is quite a bit faster than his DSL one (which offered 3 mbps downstream), and Heyman notices the improvement especially when moving large files. "If I'm downloading something, it's definitely very fast," says Heyman, who works in AOL's marketing department. "And it's 2 megabits upstream. So once a year when I get back from vacation, and I'm uploading pictures, it moves a whole lot faster." By comparison, his DSL connection had a slow 128-kbps upstream capability.
Today's top DSL providers are spending billions of dollars to upgrade their infrastructures to fiber-optic technology, which utilizes thin strands of glass fiber to carry massive amounts of data. A fiber-optic connection to the home can easily transmit all of your data--Internet, telephone, and TV--with room to spare for applications not yet imagined. "If tomorrow you come out with new electronics that can do ten times the speed, the fiber doesn't have to be replaced," says Chris Pizzirani, Verizon vice president of broadband product management.
Verizon is running fiber-optic cable to homes in its 30-state territory; FiOS could easily bring 100-mbps broadband to the home, Pizzirani says, though its current version of the service is more modest. In Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, for instance, FiOS customers can get a 30-mbps downstream, 5-mbps upstream connection for $55 a month with a one-year contract. Verizon plans to have FiOS wiring installed in 3 million homes in 16 states by the end of this year. But the technology isn't yet challenging the cable/DSL duopoly--in fact, just over 1 percent of our survey respondents get their broadband via fiber optics. Respondents who use Verizon's fiber-optic service--the only service with enough responses to rate--ranked it much higher than the people who were using the company's DSL and dial-up services.
In 13 states AT&T is running fiber-optic lines to neighborhoods, and then using existing copper wiring for the last leg into the home. (The company is conducting fiber-optics-to-the-home tests in Houston and northern Nevada as well.) The technology, dubbed Project Lightspeed, brings fiber optics to within 3000 feet of customers' homes, on average; though much faster than today's DSL, it is not as fast as fiber optics going directly to the home. In tests, the company says it is seeing speeds of 20 to 25 mbps per second. "This gives us more than enough bandwidth to provide four streams of high-quality video (including one high-definition stream), high-speed Internet access, and, in the future, consumer Voice-over-IP services," states AT&T spokesperson Brad Mays.
Expect high-definition television programming delivered over the Internet to gobble up a big chunk of the new bandwidth. Using current video compression methods, "a high-definition stream already takes up about 16 mbps of bandwidth," says Jeff Heynen, broadband and IPTV analyst for research firm Infonetics. Add two standard-definition TV streams (for watching television in other rooms) at 4 mbps each, and that raises the total demand to 24 mbps. Tack on a 6-mbps link for browsing, e-mail, online gaming, and other Internet uses, and you've reached 30 mbps. Heynen points out, however, that MPEG-4 compression technology, which providers will start using in the near future, should cut video bandwidth requirements in half.
Click the image below to see survey results on the speeds people report they are getting.
Satellite: Still Out There
If you live in an area where cable, DSL, or fiber-optic service is available, Internet via satellite dish makes little sense. It's pretty slow compared with everything except dial-up, and it's relatively expensive. "Satellite is still the last-resort broadband technology for a lot of people in very rural parts of the U.S.," says JupiterResearch's Joseph Laszlo. Only 1 percent of those surveyed reported using this technology; no provider had sufficient responses to be ranked.
Then again, satellite is improving. Speeds are faster, and today's dishes provide two-way transmission, so users no longer need a separate dial-up modem To upload data, as in the recent past.
Satellite broadband provider WildBlue, for instance, offers 512-kilobits-per-second downstream/128-kbps upstream service for $50 per month. A faster 1.5-mbps downstream service is $80 a month. In addition, you have to buy $300 of equipment to get started. At press time, both Dish Network and DirecTV had announced plans to offer WildBlue service to their customers, but neither had disclosed pricing details.
For Kenneth Mann, a computer repair technician in Meherrin, Virginia--"a little post office and a few stores," he says--satellite works. With no cable or DSL available, Mann subscribes to HughesNet, a satellite provider that charges $59 a month for a 700-kbps downstream link. Mann had to purchase $600 of satellite equipment, as well. But despite those steep costs, Mann says that he is pleased with the Service. "It's a high-speed society now, and dial-up is not going to cut it," he adds.
Wireless: The New Alternative
Fixed-wireless services employ the same technology used for wireless networking to provide Internet access throughout a town, a city, or a specified location within a city. Local governments may act as providers, though only a few thus far have begun offering service. With this type of service, a Wi-Fi-enabled laptop, cell phone, PDA, or other device has anywhere, anytime access--from home, school, work, or even a park bench. Speeds typically are on a par with those of basic DSL. EarthLink, for example, supplies 1-mbps symmetrical (downstream and upstream) service for $22 a month in several cities, and it's currently building Wi-Fi networks in Milpitas, California (to be complete this fall); sections of New Orleans (to be finished by the end of 2006); and Philadelphia (to be ready in the third quarter of 2007). In San Francisco, EarthLink has partnered with Google to build a hybrid free/pay network; service up to 300 kbps will be free, but a faster connection will require a $20 monthly fee. We did not receive enough survey responses to rate any single wireless provider, but EarthLink fared pretty well with its other broadband customers.
EarthLink sees wireless as a migration path for its large but rapidly dwindling base of dial-up users, many of whom pay about $22 a month for access. "We give them a free wireless modem, and it's the same price as they're paying now," says Cole Reinwand, EarthLink's director of next-generation broadband.
But wireless service often costs a lot more, particularly when it's the only broadband available. Randolph Cotten, who lives 6 miles outside of Holdenville, Oklahoma, pays $79 a month to Plainsnet.net, a local wireless provider. "They've got cable in town, but not out here," says Cotton, a retired Marine pilot who finds wireless faster than satellite, which he tried before switching to Plainsnet. The plan he subscribes to offers downstream speeds of up to 800 kbps, and Cotton says he's pleased with the service: "A megabyte [download] goes pretty quick."
Technical hurdles remain, though. Signals can be blocked by tree leaves, stucco walls, and windows with metallic coatings to shield against heat. A newer, more advanced wireless technology called WiMax may resolve these problems, though the jury is still out on its real-world success. Whereas Wi-Fi's range is about 150 feet, a WiMax signal can carry over several miles. (EarthLink, for instance, says it installed 30 to 36 Wi-Fi nodes per square mile in Anaheim, California; a WiMax setup would require far less hardware.) Last summer Intel and Motorola announced plans to invest $900 million in Clearwire, a wireless broadband provider, to develop WiMax service. Clearwire offers wireless broadband (but not WiMax) service in 27 U.S. metropolitan areas, with a 1.5-mbps downstream, 256-kbps upstream plan that costs $50 per month. Sprint Nextel recently announced that it will begin deploying a WiMax network that reaches as many as 100 million people in 2008.
Cellular: Pricey for Home
Major cellular carriers offer wireless data service to their subscribers, with speeds that range from 128 kbps to 700 kbps, for $60 to $80 per month. Though cellular service is expensive for everyday home use, it's really designed for the mobile professional who needs quick access to e-mail, Web sites, and video clips.
The mobility component could diminish in importance, however. "As these services get cheaper, there's a segment of online consumers--assuming they get a strong enough wireless signal in their homes--that might see benefits in anywhere/anytime Internet access," says JupiterResearch's Joseph Laszlo. In addition, wired and wireless ISPs may join forces in innovative ways. "You'll pass off cellular data traffic to your wireless LAN, which will ease the strain on the cellular networks," predicts IDC's Matt Davis. Phones that allow such activity have been demonstrated but have not yet shipped in the United States.
Today, though, cellular broadband serves a very narrow niche. Jim Heinen, a retired Federal Aviation Administration manager who travels the country in his RV, uses a Cingular AirCard, which provides a maximum download speed of 128 kbps. The service is mostly reliable, Heinen says, but latency (the lag time between the entry of a command and the appearance of a result) is often a problem for him. Sometimes data traffic "just suddenly stops, and about 30 seconds to a minute later, it starts up again. It drives me nuts," says Heinen, who pays about $80 a month for the service.
Power-Line: The Wild Card
Broadband over power line, or BPL--using existing electrical wiring to access the Internet--is an idea that has been around for at least a decade. In Texas, BPL provider Current Communications Group has teamed up with TXU Electric Delivery to offer power-line Internet service to 2 million homes in the Dallas--Fort Worth area. According to EarthLink, which is participating in the Texas project, the service offers 5-mbps symmetrical speeds for about $30 a month.
But analysts are skeptical. "Companies are wasting their efforts by focusing on [power-line service in the United States]," JupiterResearch's Laszlo says. It's too expensive to implement the technology, he notes, and both ham radio users and public safety agencies have raised concerns that running data over power lines, which are usually unshielded, creates interference with their radio communications.
IDC's Davis says, "If you're going to come late to market, you're going to have to have a disruptive price point or a disruptive technology." Unfortunately, he says, power-line service is neither faster nor cheaper than existing technologies.
Supporters point out that BPL has advantages. "A symmetrical service (like power-line technology) will appeal to some people," says Kevin Brand, EarthLink's vice president of product management. Asymmetrical broadband services like cable and DSL have slower upload speeds, which causes problems for such functions as videoconferencing and online backup. And power lines are everywhere, giving anyone with electricity a shot at getting broadband.
Dial-Up: R.I.P.
Ah, dial-up, the rotary phone of Internet access. It's painfully slow--a woeful 56 kbps--but it's also cheap and still surprisingly popular, with more than 34 million people still using it in the United States, according to research firm IDC. (That's down from more than 42 million last year, though.) PeoplePC, EarthLink's value dial-up division, has 1.4 million dial-up subscribers, many of whom pay only $11 a month. "Dial-up customers are more task-based. They tend to spend less time surfing," says Hilary Jensen, PeoplePC vice president of product management. In our survey, people who use the PeoplePC service rated it lower than EarthLink subscribers did.
Still, dial-up is doomed. Only 13 percent of our survey respondents use dial-up to access the Internet. Analysts predict that the number of dial-up users will dwindle to less than 12 million by 2009, while the number of broadband users will grow to more than 70 million. Even dial-up dinosaur AOL is in the process of evolving into an ad-based Internet portal, la Google and Yahoo, and will soon offer much of its formerly proprietary content for free. And it's not trying to garner new dial-up accounts.
Kevin Lund, an AOL user "since it pretty much started," ditched dial-up years ago, though he still runs the AOL client software on his AT&T Yahoo broadband connection. Why? Lund, who manages inventory control for Fry's Electronics stores in the San Francisco Bay Area, likes AOL's security features, content selection, and parental controls. He has been paying AOL only $9 a month, but AOL's new strategy means he soon won't have to pay that fee anymore.
"The AOL software has some pretty good proprietary software for child protection. And since I have a couple kids at home, I can lock down their computers pretty tightly as to where they go," Lund says. Among our survey respondents, more AOL users said they use parental controls than subscribers to any other service, and a much higher percentage of AOL users said they were "extremely satisfied" with its parental controls.
Of course, you don't have to settle for dial-up anymore. Broadband rules--and it's getting faster all the time.
Better Broadband Begets Better Services
If you have a big Internet pipe, start making the most of it. Here are some services that take advantage of as much bandwidth as you can bring.
Movie downloads: Sites like CinemaNow and Movielink offer movie downloads that you can buy or rent, a service that cries out for an ultrafast fiber-optic connection. Via a 1.5-mbps cable or DSL link, a movie takes an hour and a half to download. High-definition movies require even more bandwidth to download or stream in an acceptable amount of time. CinemaNow already sells some HD content, but its future plans call for HD movies in the 1080p format (the best HD format available); such files will take more than 4 hours to download if you have a 512-kbps pipe, which will be the minimum required connection. With a 6-mbps connection, you can cut that to about half an hour.
Video streaming:
ESPN360 is an online video player that shows live sporting events. Your ISP must offer this service, however; otherwise you're limited to brief clips. It specifies a connection speed of at least 450 kbps--higher than most other online video services.
HD television: MatrixStream Technologies' IPTV set-top box can deliver live 1080p HDTV via 6-mbps broadband. "Unlike cable or satellite, there's no limit as to the number of HD channels somebody could have," says Aaron Keogh, MatrixStream's director of business development. A service provider, which could be an ISP or a video-on-demand site, installs MatrixStream servers on its end, and then sells or rents set-top boxes to consumers. Field trials are under way, Keogh says.
Videoconferencing: Today's consumer-grade videoconferencing hardware, such as 8x8's Packet8 $20-per-month VideoPhone, requires about 640 kbps for both upload and download streams to achieve full-motion, 30-frames-per-second video. Many of today's cable and DSL connections offer slower upload speeds--often as little as 128 kbps--so a wider upstream pipe is necessary for good two-way video. The newer H.264 codec, just now being implemented by videophone makers, should ease upstream requirements. Full-motion video via H.264 will require bandwidth of 128 kbps to 512 kbps, says Karen Hong, 8x8 director of product marketing.
Cable and Fiber Optics Are Fastest (chart)
Internet service providers are boosting download speeds, but not all of our survey respondents are taking advantage of them, either because faster speeds aren't yet available in their areas, or because they aren't willing to pay a premium for them.
Click the image below for a comparison of the various Internet connection types' speeds, availability, and pricing.
| Connection type |
Downloadspeeds offered
1 |
Survey respondents' average stated download speed
2 |
Survey respondents' average monthly cost
3 | Availability
4 |
Comments |
| Broadband over Power Line (BPL) |
256 kbps-3 mbps | Insufficient data | Insufficient data | IN, OH, PA, VA | BPL allows high upload speeds, but unshielded power lines used to carry Internet communications may cause interference with radio communications. |
| Cable | 3 mbps-30 mbps | 5.7 mbps | $42.45 | Nationwide | Cable providers have boosted speeds of late, but they haven't cut prices to compete with DSL. |
| Dial-up | 56 kbps | 56 kbps | $22.00 | Nationwide | Subscriptions are nose-diving in favor of broadband but it's still the most widely available service. |
| DSL | 768 kbps-7.1 mbps | 2.9 mbps | $32.30 | Nationwide | Available for as little as $13 per month, DSL costs considerably less than cable, but it's significantly slower, too. |
| Fiber optic | 6 mbps-50 mbps | 9.6 mbps | $36.35 | CA, CN, DE, FL, GA, IN, MD, MA, NH, NJ, NY, OR, PA, RI, TX, VA, WA | Though still far less common than cable or DSL, the technology is catching on quickly with subscribers, and it has plenty of room to grow. |
| Fixed wireless | 256 kbps-3 mbps | 1.6 mbps | $43.80 | CA, NM, PA, TX | While you can find a wireless connection in almost any coffee shop, using one to connect directly to an ISP is a relatively new concept. A few municipalities offer inexpensive access. |
| Satellite | 512 kbps-1.5 mbps | 720 kbps | $63.10 | Nationwide | You no longer have to use a dial-up modem for uploads over satellite, and it's available where no other broadband option is, but it's still pricey and relatively slow. |
| FOOTNOTES: 1 Range of connection speeds offered nationwide. 2 Connection speed as promised by provider-not tested speeds. 3 Costs are for home Internet service. 4 Service in several states is still considered in the trial stage; states listed are ones in which providers offer connections to new customers. |
Broadband Abroad
How does Internet access in the United States compare with access in other parts of the world? We asked editors from PC World publications around the globe, from Bulgaria to Thailand, about connections in their respective countries, and we found that the United States is still playing catch-up in some respects. For more about international Internet connections, read our story.