PC Magazine sponsored The Best (and Worst) Tech Support in America, a customer support satisfaction survey for VoIP service providers, among other categories.

Methodology: They surveyed PCmag readers who were also customers of Optimum Voice, Vonage [congratulations on the new CEO gig, Mr. Lefar], AT&T CallVantage, magicJack, Time Warner Cable digital phone, Comcast Digital Voice and Skype. Dashes indicate insufficient data for meaningful results.

Skype's ratings were within 10% of average. A little below on overall satisfaction, sound quality, connection reliability, and support for non-technical issues. A little above on ease of setup.

But there's a remarkable statistic at the bottom of the table. 

7% of SkypeOut users needed technical support vs. 2% of PC-to-PC users. This is an order of magnitude lower than the 25% of users from the other services. On SkypeOut that's 360% better, on PC-to-PC that's 1250% better.

Only 1 in 50 PC-to-PC Skype users ever need tech support. 1 in 4 for other other services.

How does Skype score so well with such a small support staff?

Design. Engineering. Testing.

"It just works."

More on Skype's designs to improve "Ease of Setup" soon.