--- title: "Telecom Brand Sentiment: Only 23% of Mentions Are Positive" url: https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/telecom-brand-mentions-sentiment description: "Telecom brand sentiment is the weakest of eight industries: 23% of recent mentions are positive, 35.1% negative. AT&T gets 66% of coverage. See the data." lang: en --- Share Share on X: https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.suffdigital.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Ftelecom-brand-mentions-sentiment&text=Just%2023%25%20of%20Online%20Mentions%20of%20Telecom%20Brands%20Are%20Positive%20vs%2043.6%25%20for%20Hotels Share on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.suffdigital.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Ftelecom-brand-mentions-sentiment Share on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.suffdigital.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Ftelecom-brand-mentions-sentiment Share on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.suffdigital.com%2Fresources%2Fdata-studies%2Ftelecom-brand-mentions-sentiment&title=Just%2023%25%20of%20Online%20Mentions%20of%20Telecom%20Brands%20Are%20Positive%20vs%2043.6%25%20for%20Hotels Only **23%** of recent online mentions of telecom brands are positive, the lowest share of eight industries and about half the 43.6% for hotel brands. 35.1% are negative, and AT&T gets two thirds of all telecom coverage. Analysis of 30,000 online mentions of 30 telecom brands · news sites, blogs, stores and other web pages, September 2026 ## Key Findings 1. 1. Only **23%** of recent online mentions of telecom brands are positive, the lowest share of eight industries, against 43.6% for hotel brands. Copy stat 2. 2. **35.1%** of recent online mentions of telecom brands are negative, and 22.4% are strongly negative. Copy stat 3. 3. **41.6%** of news mentions of telecom brands are negative, against 32.6% of telecom mentions on other websites. Copy stat 4. 4. AT&T is the most-mentioned telecom brand online, with **197.6 million** web mentions, 66% of the total for 25 telecom brands and more than six times T-Mobile's 30.8 million. Copy stat 5. 5. Boost Mobile has the least negative coverage of 30 telecom brands, with **12.7%** of recent mentions negative, followed by Consumer Cellular at 14.7%, against 35.1% for telecom overall. Copy stat ## Summary Nobody writes a blog post because their phone signal worked all day. People write about their carrier or internet provider when the bill jumps, the connection drops or a price change arrives by email. Telecom brands are part of daily life, and they are mostly mentioned when something annoys the customer. For telecom marketers, that shapes everything a prospective customer finds online before switching providers: the comparison articles, the forum threads, the news about price rises and outages. It also shapes what AI answers say when someone asks which carrier to choose. The result is the thinnest positive coverage of the eight industries. Only **23%** of recent telecom mentions are positive, against 43.6% for hotels, and 35.1% are negative. AT&T dominates volume, with 197.6 million web mentions, and still keeps its negative share at 18.7%, well below the industry level. ## What we measured On September 23, 2026 we collected the 1,000 most recent online mentions of each of 30 well-known telecom brands, mobile carriers, broadband and TV providers, 30,000 mentions in all, from news sites, blogs, online stores and other pages. Each mention is scored automatically by a sentiment model for positive, negative and neutral tone, based on the text around the brand name, and web mentions count every page that contains the exact brand name. We also counted every web page that mentions each brand to measure its total coverage. A mention is positive or negative when that score is the highest of the three, and strongly negative when its negative score is above 0.5 on a scale of 0 to 1. Share of coverage is a brand's web mentions divided by the combined mentions of the 25 brands ranked; brands whose names are everyday words, such as Visible, Optimum and Spectrum, are not ranked by coverage. The eight industries compared are telecom, banks, airlines, insurance, retail, streaming, fast food and hotels. ## Telecom brands get the fewest positive mentions of eight industries 23% of recent online mentions of telecom brands are positive, the lowest of eight industries. Telecom has the lowest positive share of the eight industries, just below banks at 25.2% and far below hotels (43.6%), airlines (42.4%) and streaming (41.3%). Negative coverage is high too: 35.1% of mentions are negative and 22.4% strongly negative, putting telecom third for negativity behind banks and airlines. Recent mentions positive by industry Hotels 43.6% Airlines 42.4% Streaming 41.3% Retail 38.8% Fast food 33.4% Insurance 33% Banks 25.2% Telecom 23% Source: Suff Digital analysis of 30,000 online mentions of 30 telecom brands · news sites, blogs, stores and other web pages, September 2026 The missing positives are the real story. Airlines draw even more criticism than telecom brands, but they also get written up in travel guides and deal roundups. Telecom brands have fewer natural sources of praise: a network that works is invisible, and product news is dominated by pricing and plan changes. ## News coverage of telecom brands is harsher News pages carry 27% of all telecom mentions, and 41.6% of those mentions are negative, against 32.6% on blogs, stores and other page types. Share negative by where the mention appears All pages 35.1% News pages 41.6% Other pages 32.6% Telecom news covers outages, price rises, mergers and regulatory fights, all of which carry negative language. Because most telecom mentions appear outside the news, though, the everyday tone on forums, blogs and comparison pages matters as much as the headlines. ## AT&T gets two thirds of all telecom coverage AT&T is mentioned on 197.6 million web pages, 66% of the total for the 25 telecom brands ranked and more than six times T-Mobile's 30.8 million. Boost Mobile (20.1 million) and Google Fi (16.9 million) follow. Share of coverage by brand AT&T 66% T-Mobile 10% Boost Mobile 6.8% Google Fi 5.7% Consumer Cellular 2.4% Verizon 2.4% Starlink 1.9% WOW Internet 1.1% DirecTV 0.7% Dish Network 0.5% | Brand | Web mentions | Share of coverage | | --- | --- | --- | | AT&T | 197.6M | 66% | | T-Mobile | 30.8M | 10% | | Boost Mobile | 20.1M | 6.8% | | Google Fi | 16.9M | 5.7% | | Consumer Cellular | 7.2M | 2.4% | | Verizon | 7.1M | 2.4% | | Starlink | 5.6M | 1.9% | | WOW Internet | 3.2M | 1.1% | | DirecTV | 2.1M | 0.7% | | Dish Network | 1.4M | 0.5% | Web mentions count the pages that use each brand's exact name, so the figures show how often that name appears, not the full reach of a company that trades under several names. With 18.7% of recent mentions negative, AT&T is also one of the five least negatively covered telecom brands, so size and a mild tone go together here. ## Boost Mobile and Consumer Cellular draw the mildest coverage Boost Mobile has the least negative coverage of the 30 telecom brands, at 12.7% of recent mentions, followed by Consumer Cellular (14.7%), Google Fi (15.1%), Google Fiber (17.4%) and AT&T (18.7%). Scores are automated and cover each brand's 1,000 most recent mentions. Recent mentions scored negative by brand Boost Mobile 12.7% Consumer Cellular 14.7% Google Fi 15.1% Google Fiber 17.4% AT&T 18.7% At the other end, the five most negatively covered telecom brands each have 54% or more of their recent mentions negative, and the two highest are at about 74%. ## What this means for telecom marketing and PR teams Create positive news instead of waiting for it. With only 23% of mentions positive, a telecom brand cannot expect coverage to balance itself. Network investments, local coverage upgrades, customer programs and plain-language pricing stories give reporters and bloggers something good to write about. Watch the forums and comparison pages as closely as the news. Most telecom mentions appear outside news sites, where customers compare plans and complain about service. Answering those threads and keeping comparison sites supplied with accurate pricing shifts the tone where most of the conversation happens. Measure both sides every month: the share of negative mentions and the share of positive ones. Our media monitoring (https://www.suffdigital.com/services/digital-pr/brand-mentions) service tracks telecom brand mentions and tone by source so teams can see which channel is moving. ## Embed this research Paste this on your site to embed the charts. It links back to the source automatically.

Source: Just 23% of Online Mentions of Telecom Brands Are Positive vs 43.6% for Hotels - Suff Digital

## Cite this study APA Suff Digital. (2026). Just 23% of Online Mentions of Telecom Brands Are Positive vs 43.6% for Hotels. https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/telecom-brand-mentions-sentiment Plain link Just 23% of Online Mentions of Telecom Brands Are Positive vs 43.6% for Hotels - Suff Digital - https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/telecom-brand-mentions-sentiment ## Frequently asked questions ### What share of online mentions of telecom brands are negative? ### Which industry gets the fewest positive online mentions? ### Which telecom brand gets the most online coverage? ### Which telecom brands have the least negative online coverage? ## Related studies - Digital PR Banks Get the Most Negative Online Coverage of Eight Industries: 40.6% of Mentions: https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/bank-brand-mentions-sentiment - Digital PR 38.5% of Brand Mentions on News Pages Are Negative vs 26.2% on Other Websites: https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/negative-brand-mentions-online - Digital PR 54% of News Mentions of Airline Brands Are Negative vs 32% Elsewhere Online: https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/airline-brand-mentions-sentiment - Digital PR Only 17.9% of Online Mentions of Hotel and Lodging Brands Are Negative vs 40.6% for Banks: https://www.suffdigital.com/resources/data-studies/hotel-brand-mentions-sentiment ## Structured data ```json [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://www.suffdigital.com/#organization", "name": "Suff Digital", "alternateName": "Suff Digital Marketing", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://www.suffdigital.com/#logo", "url": "https://www.suffdigital.com/logo.png", "contentUrl": "https://www.suffdigital.com/logo.png", "caption": "Suff Digital" }, "image": { "@id": "https://www.suffdigital.com/#logo" }, "description": "Suff Digital is 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negative (September 2026), and 22.4% are strongly negative, while only 23% are positive." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Which industry gets the fewest positive online mentions?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Telecom. Only 23% of recent online mentions of telecom brands are positive, the lowest of eight industries, against 43.6% for hotel brands." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Which telecom brand gets the most online coverage?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "AT&T, with 197.6 million web mentions, 66% of the total for 25 telecom brands and more than six times T-Mobile's 30.8 million." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Which telecom brands have the least negative online coverage?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Boost Mobile, with 12.7% of recent online mentions negative, and Consumer Cellular, with 14.7%, against 35.1% for telecom brands overall." } } ] } ] } ] ```