Like a lot of folks, I’m pretty careful about the stuff that lands in my inbox.  

It might be an “unbeatable special offer.” Or a request for “just a moment of your time.” And of course, we all know about the utility scammers – the folks whose fake warnings of “pay up or be shut off” are so ubiquitous that we devoted an entire blog to calling them out.

So when an unexpected email turns out to be both cool and legit – well, that’s worthy of a little notice. Like the email that some of you may have gotten from PC Magazine.

Yes, the same publication that spotlights NextLight every year for being one of the fastest ISPs in the nation. The one that ranked us second in the U.S. this year, calling out not just our speed but our consistency. (Something that we pointed out in 2021 as well.) So when a friend reported getting an email from them … well, that got a second look.

You see, PC Mag doesn’t just rank speed. Each year, they also email a survey to some of their newsletter subscribers asking how they feel about their ISP. That’s so they can tote up their Reader’s Choice Awards, celebrating the ones that do right by their customers.

Most years, this tends to be from a pretty small field of pretty big ISPs. But there’s no rule that says it has to always be so, as long as there’s enough votes to get on the radar. And we all know community-owned broadband providers tend to give some of the best service around – something that many of you have repeatedly thanked us for.

So if, like my friend, you got a survey this year, it’s no scam. Fill it out. (And if you didn’t get one, here’s a link for their website visitors to participate.)  You just may help us show NextLight’s greatest strength of all: the awesome community we serve and the support you show us.   

That’s a prize we’re honored to win every time.