3G Coverage in Safford Arizona

[BryanDavidWilli…]

Does AT&T have any plans to extend 3G coverage to Safford Arizona? I feel in the dark out here my friends and family on Verizon have 3g coverage on there DROID's(Yuck!) while in Safford and I do not on my iPhone. I'm surprised that there is no 3G coverage here for since we have a College.

[cegonzalitos]

I enjoy the fact that no one has responded to your post in almost 2 years. I've had that question for a while. When I signed up in 2009 the reps had told me that we'd have 3G within that year here....and now its April 2012 and we are still on EDGE. I think that Verizon will probably boost their 3G to 4G LTE before we even get 3G. That makes it really tempting to switch now. Who else feels the same way?

ATT? Are you there? Hope you see this and do something about it. Globe AZ has 3G service!!! We have a larger population than them I think, and a community college here....as Bryan said. Whats going on?

[cliftonite]

I visit Safford every couple of months, and I have been wondering the same thing. I talked with an AT&T account executive, and he said the network development plans for the Gila Valley are pretty vague. All he could tell me is that more towers were being installed in 2012. That may not mean 3G is coming, though. It could perhaps just be an improvement on the existing coverage and signal strength.

Verizon certainly has better coverage and faster data speeds, though their 3G in Safford is about 25% as fast as AT&T's 3G in Phoenix. Still faster than EDGE, though.

Hopefully AT&T will get 3G there soon. Globe getting 3G a while back is certainly a good sign that someone is paying attention to Southeast Arizona.

[cliftonite]

Just as a follow up to this, as of this week, there is now 4G in the Gila Valley! Hooray!

Just restart your phone and you should be on the new network. If you have an iPhone 4 or older, it will show up as "3G".