Verizon Tops List of Carriers for Wireless Network Reliability, Says JD Power

Customer shift to unlimited data plans in rural areas is putting additional stress on wireless networks, affecting reliability for carriers that haven’t invested in 4G LTE wireless infrastructure, said a Thursday J.D. Power report. Wireless network problems are rising for customers in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and North Central regions, but problems decreased in the Southeast, it said. Suburban customers experienced fewer problems than rural or urban users. Verizon led the major carriers with the lowest network quality problems per 100 connections (PP100), in call, messaging and data quality in each region, J.D. Power said, and it tied on data with T-Mobile in the Northeast. Overall in the Northeast, Verizon led with a score of 10 PP100, followed by T-Mobile (11), AT&T Wireless (12) and Sprint (15), a pattern similar to that of the Mid-Atlantic states. In the Southeast, Verizon led with 8, followed by AT&T and T-Mobile at 11 and Sprint at 13. U.S. Cellular finished second (10) in rankings in the North Central region behind Verizon (8) and ahead of AT&T (11), T-Mobile (12) and Sprint (15). In the Southwest, AT&T tied with T-Mobile (12), just ahead of Sprint (13). In the West, T-Mobile (11), AT&T (12) and Sprint (13) followed Verizon (10). Verizon crowed Thursday in a news release, saying results showed “we’re doing many things right.” Mike Haberman, Verizon network vice president, credited last year’s rollout of LTE Advanced technologies including carrier aggregation, 4x4 MIMO and 256 QAM in over 1,500 markets for “faster speeds, better connectivity and more bandwidth for customers.” Other carriers didn’t comment. The study, fielded July-December, was based on responses from 32,159 wireless customers.