J.D. Power and Associates has released their 2009 Residential Telephone Customer Satisfaction Study, which breaks down the best performing residential phone providers in four geographic regions (east, west, north central and south). The rankings judge carriers on five criteria: customer service; performance and reliability; cost of service; billing; and offerings and promotions.

Carriers are ranked on a 1,000-point scale, and according to the firm, overall customer satisfaction with residential voice service is around 653 points, an 18 point jump from their 2008 rankings. It's once again interesting to note that despite being relative newcomers to the voice space, cable providers continue to outrank phone companies when it comes to performance.

Cox Communications ranked highest in the east, though Cablevision also scored high marks. Cox also topped the charts out west. Bright House Networks took top honors in the southern region, while Wide Open West was the highest ranked voice operator in the north central markets. Comcast, which is now the nation's third largest residential phone operator, didn't fare particularly well in any market.

The study has a few other factoids of note, including that time spent on hold to resolve service issue averaged 8.8 minutes, down from 9.5 minutes last year. Despite improved service, J.D. Power says the number of customers who left their provider increased to 10 percent from 9 percent in 2008.