AT&T has rebuffed claims that it deliberately throttled 3G speeds over the July 4th holiday weekend.
According to company spokesperson Mark Siegel, a previously unidentified software bug was responsible for slowing data uplink speeds to a crawl for a number of users.
“AT&T and Alcatel-Lucent jointly [confirmed] 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,” Siegel told FierceWireless.
“This impacts less than 2 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.”
Siegel insisted that the glitch “only affected” uplink and “only in markets” served by Alcatel-Lucent equipment, but declined to provide a timeline for a software fix.
