Americans Hate ISPs Almost As Much As They Hate Gas Stations, Survey Finds

Americans hate their internet service providers (ISPs) more than any other segment of the consumer economy—except gas stations. A fresh set of rankings from the American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) reveals that few consumers are happy with the way their ISPs conduct business, preferring them only over trips to the pump in a list of 43 major industries.

The rankings come courtesy of the ACSI’s most recent telecommunications study, which the organization publishes annually. The study covers subscription TV services, video streaming services, and ISPs of both the fiber and non-fiber variety. Using interviews with 22,061 American consumers conducted between April 2022 and March 2023, this year’s telecommunications study investigates just how happy people are with their ISPs, then pits that data against that of several other industries. This year, ISPs ranked lower than the endlessly frustrating automobile, banking, and health insurance industries, as well as 39 others that people tend to have an easier time with, such as breweries and athletic shoes.

On a satisfaction scale of 1 to 100, ISPs earned a lackluster 68, which consists of fiber’s 75-point and non-fiber’s 66-point satisfaction scores combined. The ACSI used customers’ input on a number of experiential data points, from choosing a plan to actually using their home Wi-Fi networks, to calculate both scores and combine them based on usage. Although fiber customers found their internet to be relatively reliable and their bills easy to understand, earning an 80 in both categories, non-fiber customers weren’t as impressed at 72 and 75, respectively. Unsurprisingly, both fiber and non-fiber customers enjoyed reaching out to their providers’ customer service teams the least out of 14 total data points.

Credit: ACSI

There was only one industry that ranked lower than ISPs. As much as Americans generally dislike the way ISPs manage hardware, pricing, customer service, outages, and more, they dislike gas stations even more, giving the category a measly score of 65. While the ACSI doesn’t share respondents’ reasoning (it’s a telecommunications study, after all), it’s easy to see why consumers might not enjoy spending obscene money to fill their tanks at dusty roadside stops.

Though the ACSI publishes its findings around the same time every year, the 2022-2023 report couldn’t be more timely. This month Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced that she was spearheading an effort to investigate the way ISPs implement data caps. Though ISPs demonstrated their ability to withstand a data free-for-all at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, they’ve since returned to restricting customers’ usage, charging fees or throttling bandwidth for those who exceed their plans’ limits. Given internet connectivity’s increased importance in everyday life, Rosenworcel is reportedly interested in determining whether these data caps are actually necessary or just a selfish business decision.