Consumer Reports: AT&T The Worst Cell Carrier

NEW YORK (CBSNEWS.COM) - Turns out all those grumbles about lost signals were more than just anecdotal gripes. In its latest annual ranking Consumer Reports deemed AT&T to be the worst cell phone carrier in the United States.

Needless to say, this is not the kind of news that AT&T is particularly excited to trumpet. In last year's ranking, the company finished next-to-last nationally. But in a statement, AT&T nonetheless painted the glass as half full.

"We take this seriously and we continually look for new ways to improve the customer experience. The fact is wireless customers have choices and a record number of them chose AT&T in the third quarter, significantly more than our competitors. Hard data from independent drive tests confirms AT&T has the nation's fastest mobile broadband network with our nearest competitor 20 percent slower on average nationwide and our largest competitor 60 percent slower on average nationwide. And, our dropped call rate is within 1/10 of a percent - the equivalent of just one call in a thousand - of the industry leader."

So who came out on the top of the list? U.S. Cellular, a regional carrier that provides service in 26 states, beat out the long-standing top provider Verizon Wireless with outstanding marks for value, voice service and customer support.

To come up with the ranking Consumer Reports had more than 58,000 subscribers weigh in about their cell service and customer support experiences with contract and no-contract providers. More than half of the AT&T customers responding to the survey owned an iPhone.  As it stands, the Apple smart-phone is currently available exclusively from AT&T.

The survery also revealed that 1 in 5 of those responding had received an unexpectedly high cell-phone bill in the previous year. Most often, the charges were for exceeding the voice, text or data limits of a specific bill plan.

Consumer Reports offers a few tips for consumers to avoid "bill shock" and cut cell-phone costs.

• Monitor use and act as needed. Consumers should check their use midway through their billing cycle via device settings or online. Pageonce.com sells smart-phone apps that monitor usage and sends users texts or e-mail warnings about overages.

• Don't overbuy minutes. Consumers should review the voice minutes they have not used in the past six months and consider switching to a plan with fewer billable daytime/anytime minutes, provided it offers the same free-talk time benefits.

• Avoid termination fees. Sixteen percent of respondents with a contract wanted to switch carriers but didn't want to get hit with early-termination fees that can run as high as $350 per phone early in the contract term. Penalties gradually decline as consumers get further into the contract period. Consider transferring the contract to someone else for a $20 to $25 fee through Celltradeusa.com or Cellswapper.com. To avoid being stuck with a disappointing carrier, test the phone and service during the 15 – to 30-day trial period, consumers who quit a new contract can port their number to another carrier without penalty.

• Weigh monthly costs. The purchase price of the phone, especially a smart phone, can be a surprisingly small contributor to the total cost of owning it over, say, a two-year period. That's especially true for T-Mobile smart phones, which can be bought with or without a contract, at differing prices and fees.