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SALT LAKE CITY — You can't see them, but they are there.
“I'm excited," said Chris Atkinson, who was shopping at the Gateway Verizon store in Salt Lake City Thursday. “I just know it's a lot faster. It's like DSL speeds, as fast as that."
Atkinson is talking about signals from Verizon’s new 4G-network service. Thursday, that network was activated for the metro Salt Lake City area.
4G Versions by brand:
- Sprint: WiMax
- Verizon: LTE
- T-Mobile/AT&T: HSPA+
The signal stretches from just north of Rose Park in Salt Lake City to about 7800 South. It includes Salt Lake City, Midvale, Murray, South Salt Lake and Taylorsville.
"We've had a lot of customers coming in today asking about it," said Liala Docter, the manager of Verizon’s Gateway store.
Verizon’s 4G network has been in other cities the past few months. It’s nearly 10 times faster than Verizon’s 3G service.
With 4G, Verizon says you can get download speeds of 5 to 12 megabits per second and uploads of 2 to 5 mbps.
"What it means to our customers is they're going to be able to download songs in merely seconds, movies in minutes, video chat and games with virtually no delay," Docter said.
To use Verizon's 4G, however, you need a 4G phone or modem. That's what brought Atkinson to the store. He’s hoping to surf the Internet and download movies and music even faster.
"Two-second-a-song download time is what I'm looking for," he said.
T-Mobile also announced it is doubling its version of its 4G network for Salt Lake City. A few months ago, AT&T said it's expanding its 4G service, which Sprint said it did last year.
Email:acabrero@ksl.com
