Apple limiting speeds on some US carriers: Report

A developer who provides iPhone hacks claims to have uncovered an iOS code that suggests Apple was helping the top three US wireless carriers throttle data speeds for all iPhone and iPad customers.

According to Joseph Brown, operator of the web site iTweakiOS, the code on iPhones and iPads operating on Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint effectively capped the data speeds that could be achieved on the carriers' networks. He took snapshots of the code, which, he said, specifically limited the iPhone 5 on AT&T to considerably slow down data speeds that the device was capable of reaching.

Brown said the code was proof that AT&T was limiting data speeds for iPhone and iPad users on its network.

Steven Musil wrote in CNET that the coding was indeed associated with throttling. ''We made the AT&T Hacked Carrier Update, this was the first line of coding to be scrapped when the project started,'' he wrote. Immediately, through his testing an AT&T iPhone 5 and iPad 4th generation, there were significant and noticeable results, he added.
 
As for the biggest carrier of the nation, Brown said he found code that Verizon was limiting data speeds on its 4G LTE network. Even as he noted that the 4G limitation did not appear to extend to Sprint's high-speed network, according to Brown. He said the code prevented the iPhone 5 on Sprint's 3G network from achieving faster evolution, data only or evolution and data optimized (EVDO), a protocol for high speed wireless broadband and 3G speeds.

According to Brown, T-Mobile, the smallest of the top four wireless carriers, appeared not affected by the code due to its operation on different frequencies for HSPA+ and LTE.

According to Brown, because Apple controlled the operating systems on its devices, the code might have been inserted at the behest of the carriers.

"From previous statements released by AT&T and many tech orginisations, iPhones are very complex devices with a very complex OS," Brown wrote in his report. "The OS eats much more data, even when in idle mode, than most phones on the market. So by carrier request, Apple limits devices to 'even out' the network, even if it means Galaxy users outperform Apple devices by such large scales."

According to CNET, at least one carrier contacted by CNET denied the claims.

Verizon representative Brenda Rainey told CNET that Verizon did not throttle, adding that the carrier would temporarily manage data usage of high-volume 3G data users when they were connected to a congested cell site.

In his testing, Brown did not come across any evidence of throttling on devices operating on T-Mobile's network.

The last few years have seen cellphone carriers throttle iPhone users' data speeds and while most of the time carriers claimed they only throttled users when they were consuming way too much data, that actually might not be true at all.