How to use the regular uploader (not 'Up') with AT&T network (e.g., iPhone, iPad)

For those of you who have attempted to use the regular Aurigma uploader (or any uploader based on HTML 4 Multipart-Forms) from a wireless device connecting directly over the AT&T network (e.g., via 3/4G rather than connecting via a local WiFi network), you have undoubtedly discovered that getting it to work reliably can be next to impossible and endlessly frustrating.

One solution is to use Aurigma 'Up', but for a general-purpose website, this requires creating a complete parallel implementation of your uploading capability for handheld devices. We believe we have found that the underlying reason standard uploaders often fail in this situation is the way AT&T uses proxy servers within their network, and that there is an incredibly simple work-around that appears to solve the problem if you have some flexibility in how the server running your uploader is configured. By simply running your uploader on an alternate port from port 80 (e.g., 8080 or 8082), the proxy servers are apparently bypassed, and standard, Multipart-Forms-based uploaders will once again work properly.

Of course, this requires that your hardware environment and your web application be such that this use of an alternate port for the uploader can be securely implemented and done so without inconveniencing your users, but there are multiple solutions to this part of the problem that can be discovered with a little creativity, once you understand what the underlying problem is.

Hope this is useful to some of you. We certainly sweated over it for long enough.

jpc3