This week, Consumer Reports released its annual customer satisfaction survey of wireless subscribers. 50,000 readers of the magazine were contacted in 26 cities. In this year's report, Verizon claimed top honors, scoring well above T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T, in that order.

In fact, AT&T scored dead last in 19 of the 26 cities. Any iPhone user who has tried to use the handset in New York City, San Francisco or one of several other congested metropolitan regions can attest to the network's current pains. Consumer Reports rated the company worst for voice, and worst overall for customer service. The company's scores were even with T-Mobile and Sprint for messaging and Web/email.

AT&T has been on the defensive in recent months, holding off attacks from Verizon aimed at the company's spotty 3G coverage. AT&T responded with ads that claim it has the best 3G experience. This new Consumer Reports study isn't going to help that argument in the least.

According to a report from All Things Digital, when asked about the study, AT&T responded: “We appreciate and value all customer feedback. We learn from it and it helps us serve our customers better. Without question the surest indication of customer satisfaction is churn, or turnover. For the last quarter, our postpaid churn was just 1.17 percent.” 'Churn' is the rate at which customers leave one carrier for another.

AT&T added that Consumer Reports' findings were based on anecdotal feedback from a self-selected group of subscribers.