AT&T capping upload speeds for the iPhone 4 at 100kbps?

[javajolt]

AT&T is reportedly throttling 3G uploads in a number of cities, including NYC, Boston, Seattle, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C.

Indeed, one NYC iPhone owner estimated that 3G upload speeds have been unceremoniously capped at a paltry 100kbs.

"It looks to me like folks at AT&T realized how much bandwidth the new Apple [iPhone 4] is able to consume, and immediately capped the upload speed at 100kbs!!!!! This MURDERS the latency, and of course slows the download speed," Milan03 wrote in a Mac Rumors forum post.

"I went out last night to the exact same location where exactly a week ago I was constantly getting almost 5mbps down and 1.7mbps up, with latency under 300ms, tested under the exact same circumstances. I should also mention that I did my testing in midtown Manhattan, at about 11pm on a Saturday night, when pretty much no one was on the cell tower plant's load.

However, Marc of IntoMobile cautioned that there was no way of definitively knowing if the alleged cap was a temporary or permanent restriction imposed by the carrier.

"...But it is extremely annoying for users who are trying to upload pictures, videos or anything else.

"There is word that this could be a result of an outage or maintenance, but we don't know for sure just yet. [Still], it's tough to say that it is a local or even a small, regional outage due to the fact that [a number of] cities all seem to be affected."

AT&T has yet to comment on the issue.

[javajolt]

Earlier today, we brought it to you that some users were reporting troubles on upload speeds with their iPhone 4s.  Well, as it turns out, AT&T wasn't putting their own "death grip" on data (at least more so anyway), and instead it was a hiccup with some HSUPA areas, according to AppleInsider.

Reported upload speeds around the country had been at about 100Kbps, which was way down from what the HSPA-capable iPhone 4 can pull off.  The highest affected areas were the major metro areas such as New York, and Los Angeles.

Of course first guess was AT&T's doing, but as it turns out, it was caused by an unintentional glitch related to High-Speed Uplink Packet Access in some parts of the United States.  If it's working properly, HSUPA can grant uplink speeds of about 5.76Mbit/s.

A fix may be on the way, but AT&T was unwilling to comment Tuesday evening.

[javajolt]

An issue with how the software on wireless equipment provided by Alcatel-Lucent handles advanced 3G data connections is responsible for slower upload speeds on AT&T's network, the two companies admitted on Wednesday.

Speed issues have been reported in several cities including Philadelphia, New York, Seattle and Washington, D.C. It's not everywhere though:

HSUPA -- short for High Speed Uplink Packet Access, is the most current version of the 3G GSM wireless standard in use by AT&T. In real-life situations, it is said to bump uplink speeds to 500kbps to 1.2Mbps from the 384kbps that is the maximum with HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), the precursor to HSUPA.

The issues are not limited to the iPhone 4, either. Any HSUPA-compatible device will also experience slowness issues under certain conditions. The reason why some areas were unaffected is due to Alcatel-Lucent equipment only being used in certain areas.

AT&T estimates that about two percent -- roughly 1.9 million customers -- would be affected by this problem. By default, the devices are reverting back to lower 3G upload speeds and would continue to do so until the problem is fixed.

No estimated time of completion for a fix has been given, although AT&T said in a statement that the two companies were already working on a fix. Until then, users in affected areas may have to deal with upload speeds of 100kbps according to reports.

Wednesday's admission is only the latest in a string of issues for the carrier over the past few months, most of which have involved Apple's iPhone 4. The launch of the device was an embarrassment for the company, riddled with glitches.

Another issue exposed the contact information of some 114,000 iPad owners, something AT&T has promised to investigate and prosecute the guilty party.