Specifications
Charter Pipeline
$29.99 to $49.99 per month; setup, $49.95 plus modem.
Charter Communications, www.chartercom.com.
Our readers give the no-frills cable
broadband ISP Charter a C on this
year’s ISP survey, with an average score in
every category. Charter offers a basic ser-
vice, with little in the way of added fea-
tures beyond a simple spam-blocking util-
ity. There’s no antivirus software, parental
controls, firewall, or pop-up blocker, and
you get a modest five e-mail accounts
with 10MB of storage space apiece. Inter-
estingly, Charter outranks AOL for Broad-
band on the survey, though its only
advantages over AOL are on the key ques-
BROADBAND
DIAL
-
UP
SERVICES
Readers’ Report Card grade
Rates
Customer support
Overall satisfaction
Technical support
Connection speed
Connection reliability
E-mail service
Likelihood to recommend
Length of time with provider
(years)
DIAL-UP SERVICES
AOL (367)
E
B BB B B B B B
4.4
AT&T Worldnet (347)
A+
AAAAAAAA
4.0
BellSouth (58)
C
B
——
C A C C C C
3.9
EarthLink (398)
A-
B AAAAAAA
3.6
A Significantly better than
average
C Average
B Significantly worse than
average
Juno (67)
C-
A BC B C C C C
3.3
MSN (193)
D-
B CB C BBBB
2.8
NetZero (112)
B
A CA C A C C A
2.6
Prodigy (51)
C
—— ——
C
——
C
—— ——
C
4.5
SBC Yahoo! Dial (76)
C-
B CC C C C C C
2.4
AVERAGE
7.1* 6.8*7.3* 6.9* 5.8* 7.3* 7.5* 7.1*
BROADBAND SERVICES
Adelphia (382 responses)
C-
C CB C A B B C
2.1
AOL for Broadband (98)
C-
CCCCCB C B
4.8**
AT&T Broadband (551)
D
B BB B A C C B
2.5
BellSouth (398)
A
C AAAAAAA
2.5
Cable One (57)
B-
C AC A C C C A
1.9
Charter (456)
C
CCCCCCCC
2.2
Comcast (1,721)
D
B BB B A C C B
2.1
Cox (792)
A+
AAAAAAAA
2.6
DirecWay (78)
E
B BB B B B B B
1.4
EarthLink (492)
A-
C AAAC AAA
3.1
Insightbb.com (69)
A-
A CA C A A A A
1.9
Mediacom Online (76)
C
C CC C C C C C
2.0
MSN (78)
D
C CB C B C B B
2.5
Optimum Online (349)
B
B CA C AAAA
2.2
Qwest (63)
C
C CC C C C C C
2.9
RCN (79)
B-
A CC A CCCC
2.2
Road Runner (1,436)
A
C AA A A A A A
2.6
SBC Yahoo! (808)
D+
A CC BBC BB
2.1
Verizon (524)
C
A CC C B C C C
2.3
AVERAGE
6.0* 6.9*7.8* 7.1* 8.0* 7.7* 7.8* 7.8*
GREEN text denotes Readers’ Choice. A dash indicates that we do not have enough survey data to give the company a
score. * On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is best. ** Includes time with dial-up AOL.
SATISFACTION WITH:
Readers’ Choice
ore than 13,000 PC Magazine read-
ers completed our June 2003 survey
on user satisfaction with ISPs.
In general, respondents are much more satisfied
with broadband than dial-up—especially with
broadband’s connection speed. But readers sent
a clear message: Broadband costs too much. The
average score of 6.0 for satisfaction with rates (on
a scale from 1 to 10) is very low, though unchanged
from our 2002 survey.
All other average broadband scores are down
slightly from last year. Satisfaction with connection
reliability has dropped the most, from 8.6 in 2002 to
7.7. This appears to be at least partly due to a honey-
moon effect. This year, we noticed that the average
score for overall satisfaction is 8.3 among those who
have had broadband for one to three months; the
number gradually drops to 7.8 among those who have
had high-speed connections for more than six years.
For statistically reliable results, we report only on
ISPs that received at least 50 responses. To calcu-
late each ISP’s standing on each measure, we use a
statistical t-test to compare the ISP’s score against
the average of all ISPs’ scores and determine whether
the difference is significant at a 95 percent confi-
dence level. We derive the Readers’ Report Card by
assigning each ISP point values for the eight tabu-
lated measures and converting the result to a grade;
A- or better gets our Readers’ Choice award.
* Not reviewed.
Everything worked as promised. AOL
wouldn’t commit to specific speeds, but
our tests showed download speeds ten
times as fast as dial-up and upload speeds
close to five times as fast. Tech-support
calls were answered quickly, and the techs
understood our questions. Resolving
them was another matter; it took four 5- to
10-minute calls to fix one minor problem.
Note that we reviewed AOL 8.0, but by
the time you read this AOL 9.0 Optimized
should be available, and it will include
improved spam filtering and an antivirus
scanner (for more information about
AOL 9.0, see our First Looks review on
page 33).—Charles Rodriguez
BROADBAND: BellSouth
*
, Cox, Earth-
Link, Insightbb.com
*
, Road Runner
DIAL-UP: AT&T Worldnet, EarthLink
C
Our contributors: Cade Metz is a senior writer for PC Magazine. Edward Mendelson, Winn L. Rosch, and M. David Stone are contributing editors. Carol A.
Mangis is a senior editor and Erik Rhey is a copy editor of PC Magazine. Charles Rodriguez is the product testing manager at PC Magazine Labs. John
Delaney is a frequent contributor. Associate editor Sean Carroll and PC Magazine Labs project leader Neil J. Rubenking were in charge of this story.
READER SURVEY RESULTS
tion of connection reliability and on “like-
lihood to recommend.” In both cases,
readers give it an average score.
In testing, we were pleased with the
Charter Pipeline cable modem ser-
vice—eventually. Access speeds were re-
spectable, and because we agreed to in-
stall the service ourselves, we paid only
$11 for the first month. Unfortunately, it
took us a week longer than promised to
get the service up and running. A techni-
cian dropped off the modem and a self-
installation kit, but after we hooked up
the modem and followed the included di-
rections, we couldn’t get connected. De-
spite a 90-minute telephone call, Char-
www.pcmag.com SEPTEMBER 16, 2003 PC MAGAZINE
105
m