AT&T and Level 3 Earn Top Marks for Quality in Yankee Group's Wholesale Buyer Survey; Reputation can affect wholesale vendors' ability to attract and maintain customers
BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)----AT&T (NYSE:T) and Level 3 (NASDAQ:LVLT) ranked number 1 and number 2, respectively, in the Yankee Group 2004 Wholesale Data Services Survey, which includes a study of wholesale buyers' perceptions of the overall quality, reliability and reputations of wholesale vendors.
Buyers rated vendors on a five-point scale where 1 indicated "poor" and 5 indicated "excellent." Six carriers earned top-five rankings (due to a tie for number 5), and were led by AT&T, which earned the highest total score. BellSouth, Sprint, SBC and Verizon (numbers 3, 4, 5 and 5 (tied), respectively) all earned reputation scores within 0.04 of one another. The biggest pure-play wholesale player in the industry, Level 3, earned a strong number 2 ranking with a score of 3.64. These players can all be considered industry leaders in terms of their reputations as wholesale vendors.
WilTel (number 7), SAVVIS (number 8) and Qwest (number 9) all earned scores higher than 3.0, which are mildly positive ratings. Broadwing (number 10), MCI (number 11), XO Communications (number 12) and Global Crossing (number 13) show need for improvement in the minds of buyers because they failed to attain even the neutral 3.0 rating of neither good nor poor.
The Yankee Group conducted this first large-scale study of wholesale telecommunication vendor reputations as part of its 2004 Wholesale Data Services Survey. The survey included 147 buyers of wholesale services from a wide variety of buying segments. Respondents to our survey were all decision-makers or influencers responsible for the purchase of wholesale services at their companies.
THE YANKEE GROUP (http://www.yankeegroup.com)
The Yankee Group is the global leader in communications & networking research and consulting. The company helps businesses understand the opportunities, risks and competitive pressures of developing, deploying and consuming products and services that drive communication or information exchange. Now in its fourth decade, the Yankee Group is based in Boston with offices throughout North America and Europe.
The Yankee Group J.P. Gownder, jgownder@yankeegroup.com or Press Liaison: Kimberly Vranas, 617-880-0214 kvranas@yankeegroup.com |
