Winners are Cisco, HP, Bellsouth, AT&T

Cisco and Hewlett-Packard win top honors in this year's Network World Service and Support Survey, both finishing with an overall satisfaction score of 91, making them the first vendors to earn As in our grading system.

Cisco, which won last year's survey of internetwork hardware vendors with a score of 88,added three points to its score this year, while HP jumped six points from last year's score of 85.

We conducted the survey by polling a random sample of 1,000 Network World readers and asking for their assessment of the product reliability, technical support, repair service and cost for each of their internetwork vendors. We also asked respondents to rate their primary vendors on 15 aspects of service and support. The scores from the 268 respondents were converted to a scale of 50 to 100.

Here are the highlights for each vendor:

Cisco: Overall score: 91

Users who said Cisco was their primary vendor gave the company high marks for product line integration, ease of submitting trouble tickets and availability of parts. But when it came to price, users were less satisfied.

HP: Overall score: 91

HP scored even higher than Cisco among users who said HP was their primary vendor. HP users were most satisfied with the company's product reliability, technical support, product line integration and ease of submitting trouble tickets. Users were least satisfied with the HP representatives' familiarity with their company, escalation procedures and follow-ups to check satisfaction.

3Com: Overall score: 88

3Com's scores were solid but not spectacular. The company received high marks for product reliability, but trailed Cisco and HP on technical support. 3Com's primary users reported they were more satisfied with telephone and Web-based technical support than with on-site support.

IBM: Overall score: 85

Users whose primary vendor was IBM gave the company low marks for its time to respond to problems, time to resolve problems and price.

Nortel Networks: Overall score: 82

Nortel's primary users weren't thrilled with the overall level of service and support, grading the company in the 70s on eight of the 15 categories.

Note: We also asked respondents about Cabletron and Lucent, but not enough people identified themselves as primary users, so we were unable to include results from these two vendors.

On the data network side, AT&T and BellSouth again tied for the top spot, but neither made the Honor Roll, which requires a score of 85, and neither improved over last year.

In fact, overall scores for data services were relatively unchanged, moving from 80 last year to 81 this year. The only vendor to show marked improvement was GTE, which jumped six points.

In general, the 493 respondents to our WAN survey of 2,000 readers were most satisfied with their data network vendors' product reliability and were least satisfied with the cost of service and support.

AT&T and BellSouth achieved their winning scores by offering generally good support across the board, rather than stellar performance in any one area.

On the other hand, SBC Communications landed in the middle of the pack with its overall score, but came in first in nine of the 15 categories.

Here's how each of the vendors did:

AT&T: Overall score: 83

The company received high scores for product reliability but could improve on Web-based technical support, performance reports and pricing.

BellSouth: Overall score: 83

BellSouth won high marks for its service representatives' competence, but needs to work on performance guarantees and Web-based technical support.

GTE: Overall score: 82

GTE scored high in ease of submitting trouble tickets but was marked down on Web-based technical support.

Bell Atlantic: Overall score: 81

Customers said Bell Atlantic needed to improve on repair service and technical support, especially Web-based technical support.

SBC: Overall score: 81

High scores for quick response time and good technical support, but low marks on follow-up.

Sprint: Overall score: 81

Sprint scored high on telephone technical support, but low on performance reports and guarantees.

Ameritech: Overall score: 78

The company received high marks for on-site support, but it could improve on time to install.

MCI WorldCom: Overall score: 77

Users complained about Web-based technical support and the lack of performance reports.

US West: Overall score: 75

Customers said time to install was a major problem, as was Web-based technical support.

Many of the readers who responded to the Network World Service and Support Survey have direct service and support contracts with individual vendors, but many others go through third-party resellers.

Tom Snellgrove, IT operations manager at New York-based Hill & Knowlton, a worldwide public relations firm with 50 offices and 1,300 employees, recently moved from 10M bit/sec shared hubs to 10/100M bit/sec switches from Cisco.

"We worked through one of the resellers, and they were extremely helpful, sending us lots of technical details, memos and fax sheets,'' Snellgrove says. "When we had questions they couldn't answer, they went right to the Cisco engineers and Cisco seemed to come back with answers for them very quickly.''

Snellgrove adds that he plans to buy service and support directly from Cisco starting in January.

Michael Huggins, IS operations and information security manager at Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Lucent Netcare Professional Services, says he has service and support contracts with eight vendors, and says Cisco ranks high.

"I won't say they're the best, but they're close,'' says Huggins, who uses Cisco for the majority of his routers and switches. "I was looking for some air conditioning requirements for equipment we have, and Cisco was very expedient about it. It was a lot of technical information they had to get together, and they gave me an answer in 24 hours. I thought it might take weeks.''

That kind of treatment comes down to the service and support team's level of experience, Huggins says.

Charles Keaton, director of technology at the Lockney Independent School District in Texas, also goes through a reseller and says it's much easier dealing with one reseller than with multiple vendors.

"When you're dealing with separate vendors, they're always pointing the blame at someone else,'' says Keaton, who has a Cisco 2501 router connecting his LAN to a T-1 line. He also has switches and hubs from 3Com and Hewlett-Packard. "Sometimes I have a problem and I can't pinpoint it right off, and I wouldn't know which one to call. Now I call one place, and they help me pinpoint it.''

Keaton works with Lockney's main reseller, MicroAge, even though Lockney ISD doesn't have a service and support contract with the reseller.

"I have the option to call them because I've bought so much through them,'' Keaton says.

Deb Parks, infrastructure analyst at John Deere Ottumwa Works in Ottumwa, Iowa, runs a 3Com shop but also goes with a reseller for her service and support contract.

Parks says the deal gives her branch office just what it needs.

"They come when I call them, even though they're in Iowa City, about 65 or 70 miles away," Parks says. "We've had a problem on our network with some broadcast storms, and they've been great helping us work through that and discover what the problem is.''

Even though the office is nearly a straight 3Com shop, Parks says it was natural to go with the reseller instead of a major vendor. "Actually, Communications Engineering does all our wiring for us, whether it's in the workshop area or upfront,'' Parks says. "And they were handling the 3Com equipment. It seemed natural to use them.''

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