AT&T Wireless said Wednesday that its network has suffered a slowdown in upload speeds in some U.S. markets because of software provided by one of its suppliers, Alcatel-Lucent. Alcatel responded that it’s working on a fix.
AT&T’s most prominent device, Apple’s iPhone, has been the subject of a variety of complaints about network speed and signal strength. Last week, Apple said it will issue a software update to correct the device’s signal meter, which falsely presents signal strength as greater than it actually is.
No Timetable for Fix
According to news reports, the speed drop has resulted in uploads of well below 100 Kbps, although download speeds appear to be relatively normal. The slowdown was reported by users, starting last weekend.
AT&T has said its network has suffered slowdowns in the New York and San Francisco areas, among others. A spokesperson for Alcatel, Mary Ward, said her company wasn’t releasing a timetable for the fix, and did not want to indicate specific geographic areas.
Complaints about slowness in data delivery over AT&T’s network have been common since the iPhone was released three years ago, with a focus on the New York and San Francisco metropolitan areas. AT&T recently implemented a two-tiered plan for 3G data, capping it at either 200MB or 2GB per month, replacing a previous unlimited option.
Apple has not commented on the Alcatel software fix.
Michael Gartenberg, a partner and analyst at the Altimeter Group, noted that this is not specifically an iPhone issue — but the fact that the iPhone is affected means the story is attracting more attention than it might otherwise.
Verizon Getting iPhone?
“If the iPhone were not on AT&T” and had not been the subject of complaints about network speed and signal strength, he said, “this wouldn’t be a story.” But, Gartenberg noted, the attention to the iPhone’s…