French mobile carrier Orange admits iPhone speed limiting

By Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 26 August 2008 13:46

Technology

Orange - Apple's appropriately named iPhone carrier partner in France - has admitted artificially limiting the data speed to a fraction of the 3G handset's potential.

France Info reports that iPhone data speeds have been arbitrarily limited to 384kbps.

This helps explain why users have been experiencing much slower data transfers than the iPhone in particular and HSDPA in general are capable of delivering.

According to the France Info story, Orange will increase the maximum speed to 1Mbps with effect from September 15. iPhone owners will not need to do anything to get the extra speed.

iTWire reader Thomas Burgel brought the France Info report to our attention. Burgel was the source quoted in the iPhone Atlas story about a few Orange customers having the speed cap unlocked that we cited in an earlier article.

So another piece in the iPhone performance puzzle falls into place.

As for the sceptics among our readership - you know who you are! - we'll borrow a phrase from The X Files: the truth is out there.