Local Internet Service Provider Guide

With many area residents transitioning to working from home status, along with the recent executive order ending face to face instruction in schools for the remainder of the year, The Portland Beacon has surveyed readers for their opinions on internet service providers available in the Portland area.

The feedback provided by readers has been summarized into the guide below. Please note that these responses are those of readers who completed the survey and do not reflect the endorsement of any provider by The Portland Beacon or its management.

Like many small communities in mid-Michigan, our readers range from people who live in the city to those who live in more rural areas. Some providers are not available across the entire community. We have focused on 10 providers we found in the area, but there may possibly be others that we missed. Most providers offer availability tools on their sites to see if their service is available at your home or not.

We asked readers four questions about their service provider:

1. How satisfied are you with the speed of the service?

Response scale of Very Unsatisfied (1) to Very Satisfied (5).

2. How satisfied are you with the cost of the service?

Response scale of Very Unsatisfied (1) to Very Satisfied (5).

3. How satisfied are you with technical support if/when needed?

Response scale of Very Unsatisfied (1) to Very Satisfied (5).

4. How likely are you to refer this provider to a friend or relative?

Response scale of Very Unlikely (1) to Very Likely (5).

The chart below shows the average scores for the questions for what we have identified as the “Top Three Providers.” We compared these three side by side as we received ten or more reader responses for each of them. The chart indicates the average response score for each question.

This second chart labeled “Other Providers” includes providers that the Beacon only received one or two survey responses for. While we feel it is important to share this data with readers, due to the limited number of responses received, we did not want to list them side by side with the others as there was such a small number of responses received.

The table below lists a summary of all ten providers, sorted by the number of responses received, as well as the average score of responses for each question.

We would like to thank the 60 plus readers who took the time to complete our survey. If you are in the process of searching for a new internet service provider, we hope you find this information helpful.