T-Mobile may have once been able to bank on J.D. Power's customer care survey to bolster its bag of bragging rights, but it looks like that's no longer the case, as Verizon has now finally edged it out, following a similar shift in J.D. Power's retail sales satisfaction survey last year. Not only that, T-Mobile actually fell to third place, behind Verizon's merger-mate Alltel. There isn't much of a spread between the top-ranked companies, however, with Verizon snagging a score of 103, Alltel scoring 102, and T-Mobile garnering a respectable 100. Only Sprint Nextel, which got a lowly 79, scored below the industry average. Among the other tidbits to be found in the survey, which included more than 11,000 respondents, is the fact that customers spent an average of 4.4 minutes on hold with customer service, a jump of 34% from the previous survey, while 49% of all wireless customers said they called in for help at least once, a minor uptick from the 47% reported last time around. That, J.D. Power says, is at least partly due to the "increasingly complex" wireless phones and services available nowadays.

Who is your favorite U.S. wireless carrier? Jump onboard and compare your answers to winners (and losers) in the newest wireless rankings from J.D. Power and Associates. Overall winners for the six measured regions of the U.S. are now available from the popular rankings company. Note that the newest ratings are for 2007, Volume I (the first quarter, we suppose). As usual, T-Mobile continues to win spots across the board (it's been there for years now), with three direct wins and three ties. Honorable mentions? Alltel, AT&T and U.S. Cellular. Gone from the results? Sprint Nextel. Please note that your mileage may vary. See actual rankings after the break.

J.D. Power's 2006 U.S. Wireless Mobile Phone Evaluation Study (whew) has dropped, giving us a glimpse into the mind of the average cellphone-enabled American. What have we learned? In a nutshell, we apparently love us some cheap Sanyo clamshells. Allow us to clarify: from 2004 to 2006, the average handset purchase fell from $99 to $86. Since 2002, candybars accounted for some 70% of phones sold; that's dropped to 39% in 2006 while clamshells have skyrocketed from 7% to 58%. To a certain extent, we have the chicken-and-egg phenomenon in effect here -- flip ownership has naturally risen signifcantly as attractive models (read: RAZRs) have come on the scene. Perhaps most surprising is that dark horse Sanyo ran away with the "overall customer satisfaction" title, with LG in a distant second. Satisfaction in the "phone operation" category -- that is, ease of use -- rose a whopping 5% across the board from last year, indicating that phones are getting simpler or users are getting smarter. Either way, we're all for it, as long as it doesn't lead to more people choosing ringtones in restaurants. [Warning: PDF link]