• Houston Chronicle, Monday, December 6, 2010 2:41 PM

Color us shocked. As ranked by subscribers themselves, AT&T has flunked Consumer Reports' latest mobile service provider study. As the Houston Chronicle points out, AT&T "brings up the rear nationwide, and in every city in which Consumer Reports surveyed its readership." Worse still, "Nationally, AT&T scored a 'Worse' rating -- the dreaded full-black dot -- in every survey category except for texting, in which it gets a half-black dot," the Chonicle notes.

"It had a reader score of 60, compared to 82 for U.S. Cellular, which doesn't serve Houston." By contrast, among the four major carriers, Verizon came in first in most of the cities surveyed, and in the national results. In last year's Consumer Reports survey, the city-by-city rankings were for voice only, with data showing up only in the national rankings, the Houston Chronicle notes, adding: "These results have got to sting for AT&T, which has spent billions of dollars in the last few years beefing up its network."

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