If you can find a business that doesn't need a rock-solid internet connection these days, you should also buy a lottery ticket stat, and maybe go hunting for an actual unicorn, too. It's that rare, especially in this epoch where face-to-face meetings are all on-screen.
In our annual survey of PCMag readers about their ISPs, we always ask those in charge of office ISP services to weigh in, too. This year, we're changing things up a bit to put a real spotlight on small and medium-sized business ISPs where the staff is anywhere from two to 99 people, and the so-called "small-enterprises" of 100+ people. (If you're curious about those one-person outfits working at home, check out the results of this year's Readers' Choice survey.)
BUSINESS CHOICE WINNER Small or Medium-Sized Business ISP: Grande Communications Users who want the best small-biz ISP should move to Texas, the home of this year's winner when it comes to solid, easy internet that makes office managers, workers, and IT all happy.
BUSINESS CHOICE WINNER Small Enterprise ISP: Spectrum Business You all know Spectrum, the amalgamation of several ISPs under the control of Charter, rebranded into a mega-ISP to take on the mega-competition. Turns out that when it comes to large offices, that competition doesn't hold a candle to what Spectrum Business provides, particularly when it comes to ease of use and reliability.
In the last five years of covering Business Choice ISPs, the winners have tended to mimic what we see in the home, but we modified some questions this year to narrow in on the SMB and small-enterprise sized guys rather than just fall back on the same-old sole proprietors using a home connection to get work done—not that there is anything wrong with that! Without those connections, you wouldn't be reading PCMag.com while the whole staff is stuck at home.
Our first winner, Grande Communications, certainly does plenty of at-home connections in Texas, the only state where it has service, but it was singled out by users of its business class with a high overall satisfaction rating of 8.6 (out of 10 as the highest). In fact, with only one exception, Grande had the highest rating across every measure, including setup (9.1), reliability (8.6), ease of use (8.9), and the likelihood to be recommended (8.6).
The only time Grande wasn't on top was for cost/value, where its sister company, RCN Business, was ahead by a smidgen, at 8.3 to Grande's 8.1. They also tied for 8.4 under satisfaction with technical support. In third was Wave Broadband with an 8.1 overall, right after RCN's 8.4. Note that the three top companies are all related, as they have one parent company, which apparently put the word out to users to take our survey. We couldn't find any evidence of any monkey business beyond that.
The three of them were able to push Verizon Fios down to fourth place, even when it comes to offices of two to 99. Fios has won four out of the five previous years we've covered business ISPs—but still wins for home use in Readers' Choice. And obviously, the three runners-up are what you should look for if you're not in Texas. The four mentioned above are also the only business ISPs that were capable of getting a positive number when it came to their Net Promoter Scores.
What ISP should you lean into when you've got a much bigger business? We only had four ISPs that made the cut when asking people who managed big office internet service for their thoughts. While the numbers are far from impressive when you compare them to smaller offices or home setups—people don't always like their work internet when it is thrust upon them—it's clear the only ISP worth considering is Spectrum Business. It had the highest or tied marks for every single measurement we asked about.
//Spectrum scored very well for reliability at 7.7 and astronomically well (in this context) for ease of use (8.3), a must-have for office internet. Its only deficiency is price, but even the 6.8 it scored there was well ahead of the competition from Comcast, CenturyLink, and AT&T Fiber. None of the above had good enough recommendation scores to pull their respective Net Promoter Scores out of the negative numbers, however.
Below is the full table of results for Business Choice 2020: ISPs.
The PCMag Business Choice survey for ISPs was in the field from April 20, 2020, through March 11, 2020. For more information on how the survey is conducted, read the survey methodologysurvey methodology.
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