AT&T finds slow upload speed culprit, incoming fix

As Neowin reported yesterday, AT&T was throttling users upload speeds on their smartphones and 3G dongles. AT&T identified the culprit for the slow speeds as being Alcatel-Lucent hardware. The slow speeds affected more than 20 cities across the United States yesterday, with users upload speed throttled to 100kbps.

The identified equipment, which isn't present in all markets, was falling back to non-HSUPA upload speeds “under certain conditions” says an AT&T spokesperson. The company claims that this only affected “less than two percent” of its users and only in certain areas. 

AT&T says they are currently working on a software fix for the slow upload speeds in their reply to the slow speeds,
”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.”