AT&T made headlines Thursday by announcing that it had decided to allow SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone to stream video from a Slingbox over its 3G network. AT&T's CEO claimed in the announcement that Sling Media modified the app to be more efficient on its network, but Sling has responded, saying it didn't have to change a thing.

"Sling Media was willing to work with us to revise the app to make it more bandwidth sensitive," AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega said in a statement early on Thursday morning. "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."

AT&T said that it plans to "provide developers with wireless network optimization requirements for video and other applications by the end of the first quarter." AT&T wouldn't comment on what those requirements were, but a spokesperson for Sling Media contacted Ars this afternoon to clarify what the company had changed in the software.

"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. 

AT&T may have merely been concerned that if SlingPlayer Mobile became popular that it could tax its network—already a problem that customers often complain about. de la Vega recently blamed the problem on a very small percentage of "heavy" users, mostly iPhone users with an appetite for video, audio, and other media. But that hasn't stopped the company from adding numerous data hungry devices, like e-book readers, Android-based smartphones, and even the iPad. The company has announced a number of network upgrades intended to increase capacity, so it may have less concerns about SlingPlayer Mobile specifically.

"Whatever the reason, we're just glad AT&T has approved it," Santoro told Ars. "We're just waiting for Apple's OK, now." The revised app has been submitted, but has not yet been approved for the App Store.