Best cable and landline services

Consumer Reports took an in-depth look at the best cable and landline providers and named a little-known provider as its top pick.

Regional provider WOW! gets the best overall score for cable, phone and telecom. Unfortunately, this underdog company only serves a select number of cities in the Midwest and Southeast. Tying with WOW! for first place was Verizon FiOS.

Who stunk it up in the tally? Comcast, Time Warner, and MediaCom, with scores of 61, 60, and 54, respectively.

Meanwhile, when it comes to home landline service, Ooma tops the list of providers yet again. This is the third time they’ve topped the tally. Those companies who did poorly when it comes to landline service include AT&T and Verizon.

I’ve been using Ooma for about 6 years now and it’s perfect. The monopoly local phone and cable companies all got mediocre scores. MagicJack came in at the middle of heap, but still much higher than Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, or Mediacom.

For further reading:

• $15/month for cheap landline home phone service
• VIDEO: Making the case to keep your home landline
• Home security for just $15/month