Don’t ask how, but I’ve got a good reason to believe that AT&T is rolling out 3G in Chattanooga on June 30th.

AT&T’s 3G coverage nationwide is currently just above pitiful, so it makes sense they’re expanding it.

However, think to yourself what else has launched at the end of June before and what is expected to launch in roughly the same time period this year. I’ll let you figure it out.

All I’m saying is the rollout around the 30th is probably not limited to Chattanooga and is probably going to consist of a lot more than just a technology launch. I mean, you would probably want to launch a flagship product to demonstrate it, right?

(Note, everything below the Chattanooga rollout statement is speculation, but damn if it doesn’t sound just right.)

EDIT (June 11, 2008):

Sorry, I didn’t get to find much more out yet or write a post, but I did make this. I placed 28 of the 3G towers onto a Google Map. This isn’t complete, though. For example, there are more between the big group of Chattanooga ones and the single Cleveland one. There are some important boundaries, though. The towers go no further north, south, east, or west at this time than the farthest towers in those directions.

This is going to be a tiered rollout. If your area doesn’t have it yet, and you are close to the Chattanooga market, they are working on pushing it out in the weeks (and, most likely, months) following the June 30th activation date. If I get any more info or find out changes to the “go” time, I’ll add it to this post.
View Larger Map

This data is correct as of 5/31/08. I didn’t post a screenshot of the interface I’m looking at for two reasons.

1) I’m pretty sure I can’t show the *actual* program I’m pulling these from, and my AT&T reps already know I blog here. (But, I mean, there’s nothing wrong with arbitrarily placing little dots on a Google Map that just so happen to roughly line up with coverage, right?)

2) You can’t tell anything from a screenshot. It shows all towers: new, old, dead, and dying. You have to pull up another popup for each one to get useful information.

I wanted an iPhone when they launched, but I couldn’t force myself to pay the $600 price they device commanded.  I finally settled on the switch from Verizon to Sprint when my XV-6700 finally crapped out on me, and I chose the Mogul. A couple of weeks after I got my phone, the iPhone price drop occurred. There are two reasons I still have this phone. The main one is that I’m in a two year contract.  The other one is because of the kick-ass plan I have. 3000 minutes, unlimited mobile to mobile, nights and weekends, data, and messaging. Twenty dollars per month. It’s one of the only perks for working for a retailer who sells wireless phones.  Even if I don’t use this phone anymore as a phone, it makes one hell of a Bluetooth wireless modem for my Macbook. Try to beat that for only $20 per month.  

So yeah, I want an iPhone.  I see everyone play with them. I see the cool apps. I anticipate the SDK. I only have one problem. I don’t want to pay $80 dollars per month for it. As much as I Twitter, I need unlimited text messaging.  Thus, I’ll need the $80 plan.  I can get an employee line similar to what I’ve got on Sprint with AT&T, which would kick ass. I think the unlimited data would kick it up to $45 a month, though. There is no contract on it though, which is nice. I figure if I can make sure that it will work with that plan, I might just jump. The $65 total dollars in wireless service I’ll be paying a month is still loads less than my bill was on Verizon.    

That was a lot of rambling without very good results.  Here is a summary:

tl;dr :  I hate my phone. I want an iPhone. I don’t want to pay full price for the service. I’m trying to get around it. Stay tuned. Tags on this post are related: they are all kinda required for this to work.