Salt Lake City, The Moment You Have All Been Waiting For

By David Beren September 19, 2009 1:42 pm EST Comments (161)

SaltLakeCity

Not to be outdone by Honolulu or Philadelphia, Salt Lake City Utah will officially find itself among the ranks of 3G cities tomorrow, September 20th. That’s right, SLC residents, you have asked, asked and asked again when magenta would bestow its 3G goodness upon you and your prayers have been answered. Dramatic? A little, but you haven’t seen the emails I have begging for a release date! Happy 3G hunting Salt Lake City fans!

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Tags: 3G

trickinit

I still have EDGE here..
http://www.maemomobiletalk.com Skyler Visconti

So when do we ge to see the N900 subsidized.
Joseph

Sidekick lx 09 here, data service is down as well, hopefully it’s transitioning?
ixi

It’s almost 3am…still seeing the E here.
Cody

I’m still 3G-less. I’ve still got the E. Less than 2 hours until 5am… I hope this wasn’t a joke :(
smeldraper

Stop holding your breath 3g isn’t coming…i called a rep because i was having problems with my data services completely and he said the problems are weather related (alot of extreme winds the past couple of days) and not related to upgrades in the network that the rumor of 3g coming sunday was started by the franchise TMO Dealers in utah to try and boost sales of the mytouch. However they kept saying by the end of Q3 that parts of utah would have 3g but no confirmation on what parts. Guess it is back to the snail pace internet. :(
Cody

Blah, no joke? I was so stoked -
Cody

However, my friend from T-Mobile call center in Boise told me the rumor was they’re activating 3G down here in SLC the other day, I didn’t hear it from reps in SLC…
smeldraper

The reps for tmobile are debunking it to rumor…it was funny though on saturday i went walking through the mall and when i stopped at a franchise kiosk for tmobile and was asking about it they said sunday and they said they had an official memo about it. But when i walked about 10 feet down to the official tmobile store they said they hadn’t heard a thing about 3g coming to anywhere in utah for a while. They repeated the same thing that i been hearing for quite a while that a lot of emergency services are still using the 1700 range and they had to wait for them to abandon it. LOL It was funny at the franchise kiosk that those guys would tell me anything to get me to buy that piece of crap mytouch.
Anthony

I met a T-Mobile engineer at the airport who said that SLC was getting 3G, he slated it to be mid-september through end of september. Their situation on that was it was a go, but their switch and engineering operations were molding with their admin offices and they were moving from SLC to Draper. Their consolidating their efforts under one umbrella.
jj

It’s past 5am MST, the stupid little E is staring back at me! Where’s the 3G symbol, if this was just a rumor I hope something really really bad happens to the person/persons involved! What a major disappointment :-(
Blue_Alien

I really hope that they turn on 3g today. Edge is haunting my dreams.
robertd

I’m a T-Mobile sales rep and can confirm that we’re “supposed” to have 3G by the end of the day. I was told that it’s not quite as simple as flipping a switch, so give it some time. It will happen!
http://www.rokemedia.com Weebler

Slowly but surely I am losing hope that we will get 3G in SLC. Sprint and ATT will be introducing 17G and Tmobile will finally make 3G happen in Salt Lake.
dayve

I wouldn’t get your hopes up for 3G today. There has not been one bit of information that wasn’t “so and so works for Tmobile… said it’ll be here September “.

Also, Tmobile reps are notorious for giving bad/bogus/incorrect information so I’d take what they have to say with a grain of salt. That goes for kiosk and store employees too.
ixi

Like I said with my first post…I’ll believe it when I see it.
mike85

it’s the 21st still no 3g
Jesse

Yay! I have 3G in Boise
http://utahcon.com Utahcon

Argh, all my hopes were up, by still just EDGE :(
Anonymous

Still have EDGE here in Idaho. I hope it is just the area I am in if Jesse has 3G. Maybe later in the day at work I’ll see something.
Marr0w59

Tmobile 3G rollout in SLC delayed 24 hours due to technical issues.
http://www.buy-the-cheapest-acai.info Shaun

The thing that makes me wonder is if a lot of people reported having their EDGE down last night, doesn’t that kind of show that something IS going to happen?
I was hoping to wake up this morning and see a nice 3G, but I still have that stupid E !
Somebody write a letter (snail mail) to the upper management and tell them their store reps lie like mad.
LeggNet

It’s being reported over at AndroidCentral.com that SLC already has 3G. If it’s just a rumor, it has sure gotten around.
ashton

Still on stupid EDGE 10.05 am , and jesse stop lying, OK
JJ

I work in WVC, the E is on full on my mythouch, no signs of 3G :-(
mike85

isn’t it just our luck we wait this long and still no 3g even when we’re supposed to get it wow come on this is killin me
http://www.rokemedia.com Weebler

Mike85, it is Salt Lakes luck to be the only one with a possible rumor and if it was true then why do we get the technical difficulties. Definitely no 3G cause I just downloaded an update a creeper speed.
robertd

It’s just been delayed until tonight because of some technical issues, but it’s still coming! To everyone that say this is just a rumor, it would have to be a pretty elaborate one to be causing such a fuss. I’m a T-Mo rep here in SLC and can promise that it’s coming, very soon.

@dayve You do realize that the majority of info on this site comes from T-Mo reps, right? No one has been lying, they’ve simply been passing on the information that they’ve been given.

Let’s all just calm down and try to be patient. We’ve already waited a year and a half since 3G started rolling out, a few more hours won’t kill us.
Anthony

SLC International Airport still at Edge speeds. This wait is killing me.
http://www.rokemedia.com Weebler

@robertd Oh we can’t wait a few more hours, there is no such “calming down!” Where do these engineers meet? Lets start a SLC 3G Revolution… ;)

Glad to hear it MAY be turned on tonight.
http://www.buy-the-cheapest-acai.info Shaun

I just spoke 3 reps from 3 different T-Mobile stores and they all gave me the same info: It was supposed to be turned on this morning, but there is a delay and it will be turned on sometime today or possibly into tomorrow. Since all 3 people gave me basically the exact info, pretty good odds they have that information coming down from some higher ups or something. One of the guys even confirmed with an engineer that SLC will indeed be getting 3G sometime very soon.
They are still T-Mobile reps at the stores, so it is entirely possible that they were told by management to just tell anybody who called looking for 3G information that it will be on soon…I have heard that you may have to change towers or reset your connection to the tower to get it once it is active, so everybody try going into airplane mode then back or turn it off and back on. I’m in Holladay and I still see the E after numerous powercycles.
dayve

@robertd

Look at all the different and conflicting reports from people (just in this comment thread!) who claim to have received information from T-Mobile reps. I don’t deny that one of you may have the right information, but the signal-to-noise ratio in anything any ‘rep’ says is always low.

I base my statements on years of being a T-Mobile customer and years of following different phone forums. Posts that start off “just got off the phone with a rep, they said xxx..” usually lead to the rep having bad info or just being misinformed. I’m not saying people who work at T-Mobile are always wrong, but we the readers have no idea who to trust and who not to trust.

Either way, I hope the SLC 3G posts aren’t, because I would love some 3G goodness in the happy valley already!
Anthony

The T-Mobile engineers and tower are located behind the Jazz practice center. They are being moved to the draper building to combine with the T-Mobile admin offices. Its like 12000 S State St.
Todd

Anthony,

Are you suggesting that the T-Mobile switching facility is being moved from its current location on 700 West in Salt Lake INTO the Draper Admin offices on the West side of I-15 in Draper?
robertd

It has actually already been moved over the course of the past year. That’s the number one reason that Salt Lake City hasn’t gotten 3G yet. Originally SLC was slated to have 3G at the beginning of last year, but the relocation of the switch took some time. That is now complete though, and last night’s delay was simply a software problem. Apparently, the 3G network wasn’t set up to bill usage correctly, and they are working to solve the problem and have the network launched very soon, tonight if possible.
KC

I am assuming that when 3G launches Logan will be left out. Does anyone know if the signal is supposed to reach up to Logan. I’m dying up here.
Todd

Thanks for your insight, robertd. Any particular reason why the switch was moved? Is the new space larger?

It was fun visiting the old switch on 700 W. and seeing all the cabinets and rolls of coaxial sitting out back.
Eric

Still no 3g… i don’t care if it takes a few days more.. i just want it before October :) then ill still be happy.. so STOKED that its finally almost here.. lets keep our fingers crossed.
Parker

I can see dealers doing such a thing, but I work for the corporate branch and have an offical email from Tmo that it was suppose to be today. Our Manager sent a email to see what’s taking so long and still no reply. It was officially suppose to be today! Don’t blame this on the reps it’s not our fault, complications can happen.
Parker

We also received a map of the 3G towers, Provo/Orem and the Layton/Ogden area is suppose to get it along with Salt Lake City. Everything else between is slated for a future date.
Slick

Eric- I just hope we get it before 2010! LOL All kidding aside I hope it’s soon! I’m tired of waiting!
http://www.rokemedia.com Weebler

My question is, has anyone in SLC actually used 3G anywhere on travel or moved from a 3G location? Is it really fast, meh fast, or decent fast? I am excited to pull up Google Map info quicker, buy songs on the fly through Amazon, and watch Top Gear on youtube.com waiting in the ever slow VA hospital.
http://www.jasonlwright.com Jason Wright

I live in Provo and have used 3G in both Provo and Anaheim on my G1. I wouldn’t say it was the fastest internet that I have ever used but it was noticeably quicker. It was fast enough for me to watch Hulu on my laptop while it was tethered to my G1.
http://www.jasonlwright.com Jason Wright

^^ I meant to say that I’ve used it in Las Vegas and Anaheim.
dayve

@Weebler

Yes I’ve used it in NYC and it was fast and snappy, I was amazed how fast stuff came up (coming from SLC where we’ve never had Tmo 3G). Not meh fast, but I suppose it depends on what you’re used to. If you’re talking from EDGE to 3G it’s a big (noticeable) difference
gigi

3G is AWESOME, a LOT faster than Edge. It’s like we’re still on dial up, and cable internet is next! That’s how different it is.
http://www.rokemedia.com Weebler

@Dayve & @Jason Wright, thanks for the feedback guys. I’ve never had anything faster than the big E so I am giddy as hell. I am always browsing for something so this should make my life easier. I was in Shopko trying to browse Newegg.com for a ethernet cable for price comparison, I spent 7 minutes just waiting around after I had navigated via the browser on my G1.
dayve

Get the barcode scanning app and it can save you some time for those type of comparisons.

OTOH.. Where is 3G already!!?>!>
http://www.rokemedia.com Weebler

@dayve,

Yeah I have that but I needed the cable tonight so I couldn’t wait sadly. Please 3G drop.
Slick

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? ;)