WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. – For the eighth consecutive time, Verizon Wireless has been named the mobile phone carrier with the best wireless call quality of any in the Northeast by J.D. Power and Associates.

The semiannual Wireless Call Quality Performance Study found that Verizon customers had “fewer customer-reported problems in dropped calls, initial connections and static/interference,” compared with the regional average. Verizon says it has invested more than $45 billion in its wireless network since the company was formed in 2000 after the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE.

The study measures call-quality issues to create a single composite score. Verizon scored a 110 on the call quality index, trailed by AT&T (104), T-Mobile (103), and Sprint Nextel (102).

“With an increasingly competitive environment and the complexity of services often used in conjunction with cell phones steadily on the rise, carriers that offer superior network quality will improve their likelihood of attracting new customers and will increase customer retention,” Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power, said in a statement that accompanied the study’s release.

In a survey of wireless customers, the study found that the 14 percent of wireless customers who said they definitely or probably will switch wireless providers in the next 12 months have a particularly high rate of call issues, particularly dropped calls.

The study measured wireless call quality based on seven problem areas that impact overall carrier performance: dropped calls; static/interference; failed connection on the first try; voice distortion; echoes; no immediate voice mail notification; and no immediate text message notification, according to J.D. Power.

The study was based on responses from 22,407 wireless users collected between February and June 2008.

J.D. Power and Associates – a unit of The McGraw-Hill Cos. – is a global market research, forecasting, training and performance improvement firm. Its quality and satisfaction measurements are based on responses from millions of consumers per year. Additional information, including regional rankings of telecom data service providers, is available at www.jdpower.com.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) is a New York-based Dow 30 company that delivers broadband and other communications services to mass market, business, government and wholesale customers through its Verizon Wireless and Verizon Wireline divisions. For more information, visit www.verizon.com.