Results of Annual Data Communications' User Survey of U.S. Service Providers Announced - Tight Competition Found in All CategoriesPRNewswire Data Communications, the leading global magazine for network architects, announced the results of its annual User Survey of U.S. Service Providers on Thursday, July 29. User's Choice awards go to the winners in four major service categories: leased lines, Internet access, frame relay and content hosting. Survey results also indicate that competition among providers has increased substantially, producing no single leader and allowing smaller upstart operators to edge out the Big 3. Nearly 2000 readers ranked more than 450 providers on services ranging from customer service, to billing to price. For the survey's full results and Data Communications' write-up visit http://www.data.com/issue/990807/survey.html. "If this year's results say anything, it's that customers have a greater range of top-notch providers to choose from than ever before," says Robin Gareiss, associate news editor for Data Communications. "More providers are rolling out more services as they vie for customers. All the markets are up for grabs," she continued. In the leased-line category, AT&T narrowly edged out Qwest for top honors. Network reliability, performance, and network monitoring were the major factors that produced the winning score for AT&T, while value, billing, and timeliness and quality of installations kept Qwest nipping at the giant's heels. The Internet access category produced an unexpected three-way tie for first place between AT&T, GTE Internetworking, and MCI. As competition within the ISP market heats up, significant increases have been noted in customer service, technology, billing, and timeliness and quality of installation and repairs. Another tight race took place in the frame relay category, with only a 0.03 point separation between first place AT&T, second place Pacific Bell, and third place MCI Worldcom. Lower ratings were posted across the board for network performance and value, dipping overall scores slightly over last year's rankings. The final category, content hosting, delivered the highest scores surveywide and managed to force the Big 3 entirely out of the winner's circle. Top honors in this category went to Verio, with PSInet coming in a close second. Data Communications is the only technology magazine that addresses critical issues concerning IP infrastructure. It is written exclusively for the network architects who design, build, and manage public nets or private networks at large companies worldwide. Its Web site is http://www.data.com/. CMP Media Inc. is the leading high-tech media company providing essential information and marketing services to the entire technology spectrum -- the builders, sellers, and users of technology worldwide. With its portfolio of newspapers, magazines, custom publishing, Internet products, research, consulting and conferences, CMP is uniquely positioned to offer marketers comprehensive, integrated solutions to meet their individual needs. On-line editions of the company's print publications, along with products and services created exclusively for the Internet, can be found on CMPnet at http://www.cmpnet.com/. SOURCE: CMP Media Inc. Contact: Michelle Somers of CMP Media Inc., 516-562-7697, Website: http://www.cmpnet.com/ |