Sling says they didn't work with AT&T to optimize app, it was always optimized. AT&T caught in big fat ugly lie.

Another classy one from AT&T:

Ars contacted Sling to see what exactly they did to optimize their code for it to get accepted by AT&T.  They said there had been no changes since the original submission over a year ago and that it had always been optimized for 3G network streaming.  

"We didn't change anything," Sling Media's John Santoro told Ars. "AT&T never discussed any specific requirements with us."

Santoro explained that SlingPlayer Mobile has always contained code to adapt the stream quality to the given network conditions. AT&T has been in discussions with Sling since it was first released last year, but AT&T never asked the company to make specific modifications. No changes were made to the app's 3G streaming capabilities between its being barred from AT&T and now.

That makes AT&T a big fat liar.  From their press release yesterday:

“Key for us is Sling Media was willing to work with us to revise the app to make it more bandwidth sensitive. They made important changes to more efficiently use 3G network bandwidth and conserve wireless spectrum so that we were able to support the app on our 3G mobile broadband network,” said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets.

Grab the popcorn and prepare yourselves for some really awesome spin from AT&T. Oh, and if Sling is to make it past Apple's App Store gatekeepers, we're expecting them to have to pretend that they didn't make the above true statement.

Update: As expected, here's the update:

Sling Media general manager John Gilmore contacted Ars to clarify the working relationship between Sling and AT&T.

"We actually have been working very intensively with AT&T to get the 3G streaming approved," Gilmore told Ars. "Over the course of the last couple of months, they have been testing the app in their labs."

Gilmore said that AT&T was able to determine that SlingPlayer Mobile wouldn't significantly impact network performance after extensive testing. "We always felt comfortable that that wasn't the case," he told Ars. "As we built our relationship with AT&T, we were able to prove to them that our app wouldn't cause a negative customer impact. We always felt that our app was a 'good network citizen.'"

When asked what code changes AT&T wanted, if any, Gilmore verified that no specific changes were made at AT&T's request. He did say, however, that the 3G streaming code has had some improvements over the course of the last several months due to general code optimization. "We want to make sure that we constantly improve how our app uses network resources."