Consumer Reports had a problem recommending the iPhone 4 back in July, and now it seems that the comparison group isn't fond of the iPhone 4's carrier, either.  In their latest carrier rankings, Consumer Reports has named AT&T the worst carrier in the U.S.  ATT managed to earn the lowest possible rating, "Worse," in all categories except "Texting," where it got one step up from the worst possible rank.  When it comes to value, voice, data, and customer service, though, AT&T is the worst around, according to Consumer Reports.  U.S. Cellular scored the highest, with Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile following in that order.  ATT issued the following statement on Consumer Reports' rankings:

“We take this seriously and we continually look for new ways to improve the customer experience. The fact is wireless customers have choices and a record number of them chose AT&T in the third quarter, significantly more than our competitors. Hard data from independent drive tests confirms AT&T has the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network with our nearest competitor 20 percent slower on average nationwide and our largest competitor 60 percent slower on average nationwide.  And, our dropped call rate is within 1/10 of a percent – the equivalent of just one call in a thousand – of the industry leader.”

Included in the report is a list of the best smartphones on each carrier according to Consumer Reports, and the breakdown looks like this:

• AT&T: iPhone 4 and Samsung Captivate
• Verizon: Motorola DROID X and Samsung Fascinate
• Sprint: Samsung Epic 4G
• T-Mobile: Samsung Vibrant

Consumer Reports is one of the biggest mainstream comparison groups around, so the fact that they rated AT&T the worst carrier in the country could be bad, especially since the ratings were so poor across the board.  I've always told people thinking about switching carriers to take advantage of the 30-day return period that most companies offer and test out the network, customer service, etc., but with this ranking from Consumer Reports, it's likely that a lot of people won't even give ATT a chance.  What do you all think of CR's ratings?  Do you agree with their assessment of AT&T?  Would you switch the order of their carrier or smartphone rankings?

Via SlashGear, Chron