Apple's exclusive partner in the U.S. came in dead last among the 58,000 consumers surveyed about their carriers, which included the rest of the nation's big four--Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile--as well as regional carrier U.S. Cellular. According to a copy of 's print edition obtained by , U.S. Cellular scored the highest ranking of any of the providers, with a reader score of 82. Verizon followed with 74, Sprint with 73, T-Mobile with 69, and AT&T in a distant last place with 60.

In fact, AT&T scored the lowest possible ranking in eight of the nine surveyed categories, including overall value, voice service, data service, customer support via phone, customer support via Website, customer support via e-mail, staff knowledge, and issues resolved. The lone exception was Texting, in which the company registered the second lowest possible score.

Furthermore, says that half of the AT&T customers it talked to were iPhone users, who were particularly disenchanted with their AT&T service. The publication said that iPhone users rated Web and e-mail service lower than users of similar smartphones on other platforms.

also broke out carrier ratings in several cities around the country, and AT&T scored the lowest rankings among all of the 23 markets surveyed, ranging from Atlanta to Washington D.C. My own hometown of Boston gave AT&T poor ratings in service and data, a slightly less poor rating for dropped calls, and an average rating for texting, all of which gibes pretty much perfectly with my own experience.

In a statement provided via e-mail to , an AT&T spokesperson said: