The Consumer Reports National Research Center recently surveyed 51,700 readers in 23 cities to determine how satisfied users were with their cell phone service. Verizon Wireless took the top place for most satisfied customers, only beaten in a few locations by Alltel, which they'll be acquiring shortly. The findings indicate that 60% of people said they were "completely or very satisfied" with their service, up from 45% last year. Consumer Reports tells Mercury News a big reason for this is the new trend in making early termination fees less obnoxious:The worst performing carrier was Sprint-Nextel, who in addition to suffering from their botched acquisition of Nextel, is the last carrier to migrate to a pro-rated ETF system. They're apparently afraid that customers will take the opportunity to flee, which would be problematic given the carrier lost almost 2.5 million wireless subscribers in the last two quarters. For reference, Verizon added 2.1 million total (including acquisitions) last quarter alone.

AT&T didn't fare particularly well in the ratings, either. An AT&T spokesman tells Mercury News their poor ratings are because the Consumer Reports study is "based on anecdotal feedback from a self-selected group of subscribers," even though similar studies by firms like JD Power rank AT&T as mediocre to poor in everything from call quality to customer care. It looks like the full version of the Consumer Reports article is hidden behind a pay wall, but you can find additional coverage of the report at The Street and PC World.