Mediacom is the worst

An annual survey in Consumer Reports magazine gives Mediacom the worst TV, Internet and phone service ratings of any cable company in the country.

Mediacom, the dominant cable company in the state of Iowa, ranked at the bottom of a survey of 50,000 consumer reports readers for TV service, phone service and bundled telecom services. In Internet service, the company ranked only above satellite Internet providers WildBlue and HughesNet.

The quality of telecom providers every year

Consumer reports surveys its subscribers on the quality of telecom providers every year. The latest results, published in the magazine's June 2012 issue, is based on the annual telecom survey conducted online in the spring of 2011. In its entirety, 54,000 respondents had home TV service, 44,000 had phone service, and 51,000 had Internet service. Ratings for bundled services were based on 15,000 respondents who had phone, Internet and TV in a bundled package.

The top finishers were WOW -- a regional cable company that service Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio -- and Verizon FiOS, the cellphone company's fiber optic service. Tops in phone service was Ooma, a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone service provider.