AT&T 3G in Anchorage Alaska

3 Aug

A little birdy told me that 3G should be coming to Anchorage in August 2008. Doing a little reading between the lines and based on some subtle hints, my estimation is that Anchorage and perhaps several other areas around Alaska will have 3G by August 11, 2008.

Enabling 3G will provide a much needed boost in AT&T’s arsenal of connectivity options for Alaskans. It will also mean for travelers to Alaska that their experience will be more like home. While I am usually fairly critical of all things connectivity in Alaska, having 3G implemented gives me a glimmer of hope.

Now that I have talked up AT&T and shown them some appreciation for rolling out 3G, I look forward to the decoupling of Apple and AT&T. I still believe some strong competition for the iPhone 3G would benefit everyone. Sure, the device is cheaper, but the plans are extremely expensive in my opinion. I’m still hanging on to my old CellularOne $60/month unlimited voice plan – that’s the number one reason I don’t have the iPhone.

So, hooray for Alaska and AT&T – let’s see if my predictions are correct! In my next post, I have a little more information about the number of available WiMax sites around Anchorage. I love the potential for WiMax and hope it can really create a competitive environment in the ISP market.

That is all for now.
-Kevin

73 Responses to “AT&T 3G in Anchorage Alaska”

  1. Don 26. May, 2009 at 3:59 pm #

    I just had a friend confirm his 3G lit up this afternoon as well. How is it working for those that have it? I was afraid that with the way my EDGE was working it would be slow/oversubbed. I was looking to upgrade to 3G with the next iPhone release, but it needs to be worth it…

  2. Matt 26. May, 2009 at 4:01 pm #

    3G is here Midtown 36th and C street. Correction 3.5G as I have HSDPA….

  3. Kevin 26. May, 2009 at 4:03 pm #

    Glad to hear that the 3G or HSDPA is slowly turning up. Now, I’m with Don…let’s see what the next iPhone release looks like!

  4. Tom 26. May, 2009 at 4:33 pm #

    It was up at the airport and all the way east on Tudor. Not yet availabe yet in Muldoon area as of this posting.

  5. JimAK 26. May, 2009 at 4:43 pm #

    Not realy fast here in midtown – I have 785 avg down, 205 avg up.

    I had almost double those numbers in Indianapolis this weekend.

  6. Tom 26. May, 2009 at 4:45 pm #

    ok. Now Muldoon is ip and running.

  7. Lisa 26. May, 2009 at 4:59 pm #

    I was at ihop on Tudor rd earlier. My husband and I have iPhones. They both had 3G. The Internet was twice as fast. When we got home to elmendorf afb. We were sad to see it had disappered.

  8. Kevin 26. May, 2009 at 5:03 pm #

    Well, considering I pay $139.99 plus phone service for 768K DSL, that avg download sounds pretty good for a mobile device. Sad, where only slightly less than crappy sounds good, huh? Gotta love Alaska!

  9. Matthew 26. May, 2009 at 5:44 pm #

    3G lit up on my phone today. Works well with a huge increase over what I was getting on ATT’s network as it switched between E and G.

    Anyway, it’s about time. Yay!

  10. Jesse 26. May, 2009 at 7:34 pm #

    I HAVE 3G!

    I’m on Elmendorf, close to the Government Hill tower.

  11. Mike 26. May, 2009 at 8:18 pm #

    All we need now is the 3.0 firmware!!

  12. Tim B. 26. May, 2009 at 10:51 pm #

    Just tested the speed on the iphone and here is what I got.

    1708 kb/s download average
    208 kb/s upload average
    Latency 248 ms

    That’s faster than what I’m getting with Clearwire.

    I got that over on the East side (Muldoon Area).

  13. Lainie 27. May, 2009 at 11:07 am #

    does anyone know if it is available in eagle river? too or just in Anchorage?

  14. James 27. May, 2009 at 3:35 pm #

    I clocked 3G in midtown @ 1.5mbps download and and upload speed of 102kbps. I have also experienced some missed calls and interruption of service during the upgrade. During peak times clocked download speed has been as low as 245 kbps.

  15. Matthew 27. May, 2009 at 9:20 pm #

    Right now my phone says 3g but it doesn’t connect to anything. This same time last night it worked great. Anyone else have this problem?

  16. Jesse 30. May, 2009 at 8:47 pm #

    Matthew, I’ve been experiencing problems where the signal will bounce back and forth between EDGE and 3G, and I live 4900 feet from the Government Hill tower.

  17. Terr 19. Jun, 2009 at 3:01 pm #

    If you live outside of Southcentral Alaska don’t purchase an iPhone unless you can get a first generation off of eBay. An iPhone 3GS would be as worthless as a 3G at this point in these areas. You can always go to ACS for 3G which it has had for sometime – besides its much better than ATT in terms of roaming into Canada.

    When you get outside, complain to Apple when you visit an Applestore. ATT isn’t satisfying Apple in terms of its slow adoption of technologies such as MMS and tethering.

  18. Czar 05. Jul, 2009 at 11:56 pm #

    Where is 3G for Fairbanks, Juneau and the rest of Alaska! AT&T service sucks bigtime outside of Anchorage and the Valley.

  19. Ken Woods 17. Dec, 2009 at 4:50 pm #

    3G is up and running in Fairbanks as of 12/17/09

  20. Kenneth 17. Dec, 2009 at 7:06 pm #

    My iPhone 3G has been switching between EDGE and 3G for a while today over on Fort Wainwright. This is the first time I have seen 3G on my phone up here. I keep hoping it will stick and I will never see that “E” again.

  21. Jouten 30. Dec, 2009 at 11:02 pm #

    3G just lit up on our phones here in Juneau. I live in West Juneau and my co-worker’s iPhone lit up 3G as well and she lives in the Valley…

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Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. 3G in Alaska | The Alaska Intermittent Tribune - 08. Apr, 2009

    [...] and yet we in Alaska haven’t even experienced the first generation of 3G. Check out the original post and comments [...]
  2. 3G Network Coming to Alaska « penkapp.com - 13. Apr, 2009

    [...] This date has been mentioned on AT&T’s Wireless Forum, the ever-reliable Twitter, the Alaska Intermittent Tribune, at the MacHaus, the AT&T Store on 5th Ave, and in a July, 2008 ADN article. In the latter [...]

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