Battle of the Bandwidth: Which ISP is the Worst?

Almost from the very beginning it has been a race to the bottom for internet service providers. While actual utilities like electricity and water can be boiled down to a cost per unit, the name of the game in the Internet is artificial scarcity. The entire business model of wireless Internet is about throttling service to create tiers and make more money. As you likely well know, this is a business where the industry leaders are known to do whatever they can to pinch a penny, where survival is all about finding a way to reduce the cost of doing business rather than improving service.

Soon enough, the behemoth ISPs will have purchased enough lobbyists to end net neutrality. Though we thank John Oliver for finally getting people to care about it, it is probably too little too late. FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is a former cable industry lobbyist for god's sake. Why did Obama allow this conflict of interest, or as Mr. Oliver put it “the equivalent of needing a babysitter and hiring a dingo?” Wheeler raised at least half a million dollars for Obama’s re-election campaign. So, when net neutrality ends, you can at least feel good knowing that our President takes care of those who do him favors.

Though it seems likely that eventually the nation’s ISPs will be one cold, uncaring monster who would make the White Walkers look sympathetic, in the meantime, we can celebrate how terrible things already are. The nation’s major internet companies are pretty terrible; you already knew that. Let’s take a look at just how terrible they are find out which of them is the most terrible. Let’s dig into the business practices, employee relations, and customer service of the big ISPs: Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, and Verizon, and find out once and for all Which ISP is the Worst?

"Winner": Verizon

Netflix is a big deal to our generation. In a matter of a few years, Netflix has become that friend who is always there for you during the worst times. America now knows that bad break-ups, layoffs, and the rest of life's slings and arrows are best weathered by binge-watching an obscure TV show from the 90s. Of course, in the end, ISPs still are who we thought they were. This chart of average ISP Netflix speeds is depressing enough to spark a binge-watch. Verizon services hold the bottom spot while the much touted FIOS barely cracks the top ten (the list is only sixteen providers long).

Verizon's Netflix chicanery feels like a good old fashioned Mafia protection racket. You can almost imagine a burly man walking into Netflix offices, leaning into some executives and intoning in a menacing voice, "Wouldn't it be a shame if people had trouble streaming Orange is the New Black this weekend?" That's right. The Netflix-Verizon beef heats up in months when Netflix drops an original series. It seems that Verizon did not get the memo that she shouldn't come between you and Piper, lest they get the Crazy Eyes treatment.

"Winner": Highest Fees: Comcast
Worst Value: AT&T
Worst Hidden Fees: Verizon and Time Warner
Dumbest Names for Speed Tiers: Time Warner

In this category, all the major ISPs have their sins. The company that offers the most expensive plan is Comcast. For $114/month you get the same speeds that Time Warner offers at half the price. They add a number of meaningless benefits to this service in hopes of tricking your parents into purchasing it, including "access to Wi-Fi hotspots" (which doesn't have any impact on your home Internet), "Constant Guard Online Protection" (which sounds like it does absolutely nothing), and email storage far inferior to a product that Google gives away for free.

Verizon and Time Warner only offer their more competitive pricing for the first twelve months of service. Time Warner's site doesn't tell you exactly what your Internet costs will be after that first year, while Verizon is kind enough to let you know that you'll see a $20 hike in Internet fees after the first year. AT&T has the cheapest high-end plan at $30/month. This is because they can only provide high-end speeds of roughly half of what the other providers can offer. Time Warner gets an extra strike against them for having tiered plans straight out of a Mountain Dew Commercial including "Turbo" (20Mbps)," "Extreme (30Mbps)," and "Ultimate (100Mbps)."

"Winner": AT&T and Verizon

AT&T and Verizon are the winners in the courtroom because they are involved in other, more competitive business spaces. Often, they are suing each other. Did you ever notice that you never live on a block that offers more than couple ISP options? This is because ISPs have basically divvied up turf and blamed issues of infrastructure. You can't mandate that customers have to buy AT&T or Verizon telephone service (yet). If you can't gerrymander the marketplace, then it is time to sue each other. Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint love to send their lawyers charging at each other for the slightest infraction. AT&T has sued Verizon over the maps they use in their ads; T-Mobile has followed suit more recently. Sprint has sued AT&T and Verizon over local access fees. These companies don't just sue each other. Verizon has sued the FCC over net neutrality rules and data roaming. AT&T has recently sued the city of San Francisco over the placement of utility boxes and sued a Michigan town over their moratorium on the placement of cell phone towers. Look on the bright side: at least while these companies are in court with each other, they are at least slightly distracted from putting their heads together to get more of our money.

"Winner": Time Warner

This is sort of like asking which former Bush cabinet member sounds the most ridiculous when discussing Obama's policy in Iraq or which of your friends is the biggest fair weather World Cup soccer fan. According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, ISPs are far and away the least beloved companies in the U.S. of A. As business journalist Brad Reed put it, "Comcast and TWC have even lower customer satisfaction rating than United Airlines, which has a notoriously bad reputation in an industry that, due in part to government security requirements, is known for delivering a miserable experience."

Of course, you knew who would win this award; you've probably known since you were born. It is written on your heart. Time Warner offers the worst customer service on the planet. In 2013, only the Long Island Power Authority beat out Time Warner in terms of customer dissatisfaction. Only a company who left customers without power after a natural disaster could best Time Warner in terms of the pain they cause their customers. The proposed Comcast-Time Warner merger will bring even less competition to a space where very little exists. Don't be surprised if customer satisfaction scores, which already slide lower every year, plummet further. It's hard to fathom exactly how these companies can make customers more unhappy, but we're sure they will find a way. Maybe instead of a window between 9am and 5pm for service, you'll have to use your vacation days just to home to wait for a technician.

"Winner": Four Way Tie

It's hard to compete with zero. That is exactly what many of America's biggest companies end up paying in taxes. The problem isn't just in the communication space. If a company is large enough to be a household name, they likely pay a negligible amount in taxes. Long ago, companies learned that it is much easier to buy tax loopholes by hiring an army of lobbyists and pouring in those campaign contributions than it is to do your civic duty.

All of our contenders have some pretty amazing tax stories. In 2011, AT&T paid their C.E.O. more money than they paid in taxes. AT&T enjoyed a $420 million refund while paying head honcho Randal Stephenson $18.7 million. Verizon made $19.3 billion between 2008 and 2012 and paid no federal income tax during that period; they actually received a rebate. Bill Moyers quotes their effective tax rate during that period at -2.8%. Time Warner managed to finagle a 3.9% tax rate over a five year period. The benevolent civic-minded folks over at Comcast paid out a hefty 4% tax rate to Uncle Sam. In cash strapped Philadelphia, not only does Comcast not pay their taxes, but they demand tribute from the local community. The Comcast Center was built with hefty government subsidies so that it could look truly stunning looming over the city's crumbling schools.

"Winner": Comcast

All four of these companies are aggressively anti-union. Verizon and Comcast both have a particularly antagonistic relationship with labor unions, but we have to give the slight edge to Comcast. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers has called Comcast "The Wal-Mart of Cable." The Writer's Guild of America has come out strongly against the company's anti-union practices. Reclaim the Media found several stories of Comcast engaging in the kind of anti-union behavior that sounds more at home in a 19th century mining town than in modern America. The watchdog site writes:

There are numerous stories like these from across Comcast's business. They'll do anything to keep union rolls low. They've even institutionalized their union busting with a 37-page anti-union training document. Most estimates put union participation of Comcast employees at only 2%.

"Winner": AT&T

It isn't as though working for any of these companies is a walk in the park, but AT&T's long and colorful history of employee mistreatment puts them at the head of the class. The telecom giant has made news mistreating and discriminating against employees in pretty much every way you could imagine. In 2001, a group of 150 AT&T employees brought a variety of discrimination and harassment charges against AT&T. At least thirty employees brought a suit against AT&T in 2007 seeking compensation for injuries sustained due to poor call center air quality. In 2008, AT&T was forced to award almost half a million dollars to an employee who was a victim of racial discrimination. A 2009 Supreme Court case pitted AT&T against a woman whose maternity leave was counted aginst her pension. This year, about a dozen Ohio AT&T workers claimed they were singled out for reporting on the job injuries. If you've got some time to kill, you and your friends can compete to find the most heinous charge levied against AT&T on the behalf of employees; we're sure it could make for a fun drinking game. And after these stories, you'll need a stiff drink.

Final Tally
Comcast: 5
AT&T: 5
Verizon: 4
Time Warner: 3

In a hotly contested race, we have a tie. Though anyone who has ever lived in the New York area must have thought that Time Warner was a sure-fire winner, Comcast and AT&T have proven themselves the worst of the worst. Don't worry Verizon and Time Warner: in a way you're all winners. Each of these four bloated monstrosities handily won at least one category that makes them look truly despicable. For their efforts, all four of these behemoths get the same prize: a bed of money.