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Bad software blamed for AT&T iPhone upload choke

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The hue and cry over AT&T's supposed "throttling" of iPhone 4 uploads turns out to have been premature — that is, if AT&T's explanation is to be believed.

AT&T Wednesday issued a statement that said the upload slow-downs stemmed from software problems in their Alcatel-Lucent HSUPA equipment.

The statement came after the intertubes were clogged on Tuesday with reports by GigaOM, Gizmodo, MacRumors, SlashGear, and others, that accused AT&T of intentionally cutting back on mobile-device upload speeds.

Although it now appears that those many observers seem to have jumped to conclusions, their mistrust of AT&T is understandable. After all, Big Phone capped its previously unlimited data plans exactly one month ago, their wireless broadband has teetered and creaked under the onslaught of data-hungry iPhone users, and 1.7 million iPhone 4s were added to its burden in just the first three days of the antenna-challenged device's existence.

So the accusations heaved at AT&T were neither far-fetched nor overly paranoid. They were, however, wrong — according to AT&T.

Reponding to the brouhaha, protestations, accusations, hullabaloo, and high-energy hissy-fitting the telco-giant's statement said:

AT&T and Alcatel-Lucent jointly identified a software defect — triggered under certain conditions — that impacted uplink performance for Laptop Connect and smartphone customers using 3G HSUPA-capable wireless devices in markets with Alcatel-Lucent equipment. This impacts less than two percent of our wireless customer base. While Alcatel-Lucent develops the appropriate software fix, we are providing normal 3G uplink speeds and consistent performance for affected customers with HSUPA-capable devices.

Perspicacious Reg readers will certainly note that those pesky "certain conditions" aren't defined, nor is a time frame for the fix even estimated, let alone promised.

Until those "certain conditions" are debugged, iPhone 4 users won't be able to take full advantage of the Category 6 HSUPA 5.76 Mb/s maximum uplink speeds of which their new toys smartphones are capable. ®

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Latest Comments

Unlimited data?

AT&T has never had truly unlimited data plans. They had a plan that was advertised as unlimited, with a 5GB/mo cap in the fine print. The recent change to a 2GB/mo plan for $5 less is par for the course. I pray that the Verizon rumors that keep recurring are indicative of future events (and I have issues with Verizon too, just not as many as AT&T).

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1/10

No "!!!11!!elebenty!one!"`s

No "CAPSLOCK"

Most important I understood every word.

Please try harder.

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Rant

**Warning** This is a rant that has nothing to do with AT&T or the iphone, but has everything to do with connection speeds...

It turns my stomach to see portable wireless devices that have or are supposed to have such decent transfer rates, and i cant even get download speeds that are even comparable to the iphone 4's upload speed...

Its not like i live out in the sticks or anything, i live in the 5th largest city / 12th largest metropolitan area in the US, and the best i can get is 3mbps down and 894kbps up...

F*ck you Qwest! may you rot in hell...

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