Monday, October 5, 2009

AT&T 3G service finally available in Urbana-Champaign

Ongoing promises, reiterated for years, to roll out AT&T 3G coverage to Champaign-Urbana (as recently as march 23, 2009 in this post, AT&T Investment in 2009 Will Add More Than 40 New Cell Sites throughout Illinois) have finally been fulfilled (at least it looks that way). Friends have been reporting to me that as early as last Monday they'd been waking up and turning on their iPhones to see a pleasant and (generally) unexpected surprise- their s all started indicating they had a 3G connection! It is, perhaps, a bit troubling that this information isn't yet listed on the Cities Supporting AT&T 3G/Mobile Broadband page yet, but that's probably coming soon. At least it shows up as 3G coverage available for a huge bit of land (all of Champaign Urbana, plus some) on the AT&T Coverage Viewer.

Early reports are that access speeds seem comparable to and maybe even slightly better than 3G service they've used in other cities.