In deciding recently whether or not to have Lasik surgery done to address my life-long battle with nearsightedness, I made the mistake of doing some online research.

I say "mistake" because any thoughts of following my eye doctor's advice and having the surgery went right out the window after reading several horror stories about the aftermath of what everyone had previously told me was now routine surgery. The thing is, the vast majority of people who get this surgery from a reputable facility and doctor don't have horror stories to tell. But they also don't rush home and create Web sites to tell the world how great their Lasik procedure went.

By contrast, those who have post-surgery problems are more likely to complain online and some of them go to great lengths to do it.

The same thing is true about customer service in the telecom arena today. Spend a few minutes online at sites such as The Consumerist and you'll come away convinced that all service providers -- telco, cable, satellite -- are engaged in an evil plan to defraud consumers and make their lives as difficult as possible. When Verizon technicians accidentally set a house on fire while trying to install FiOS services, it was all over the Web.

But when similar installations -- the vast majority of them -- go smoothly, there's not a peep.

The knowledge that every mistake is a blog entry in the making should keep service providers on their toes, but there's a strong sense that isn't happening. A certain amount of consumer pain appears to be tolerable, as long as everyone is being tarred with the same brush. Past experience also shows that investors aren't always that thrilled when big bucks are spent improving customer service -- when it was a publicly traded company, Cox Communications was regularly penalized for such aberrant behavior.

I have to wonder what would happen if a company actually did put customer service for consumers first, and established best practices for making and meeting installation appointments, answering phones and resolving troubles. Many service providers say they are doing that now, but the blogosphere argues otherwise.

It's just hard to know whether that's the vocal minority or whether the overall quality of customer service by broadband service providers of all types is really suffering.

E-mail me at cwilson3@telephonyonline.com.