THE CUTTING EDGE : Internet Service Report Card

In a survey of leading Internet service providers conducted by J.D. Power and Associates, MindSpring finished in the top spot for customer satisfaction.

The survey rated seven leading Internet companies in various categories, ranging from customer care and technical support to cost and e-mail services.

The survey also found that the average Internet subscriber spends 16 hours a week online, and 31% of those surveyed made at least one online purchase a month. When subscribers were doing research, Yahoo.com was the most popular search engine, followed by Excite.com.

Industry average: 100

Finishing below average in the survey, in alphabetical order were:

AOL

Compuserve

Prodigy.

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ISP Customer Satisfaction Index Scores

MindSpring: 118

Earthlink: 110

AT&T; WorldNet: 107

Microsoft: 103

Source: J.D. Power & Associates 1999 National ISP Online Residential Customer Satisfaction Study