Following a glut of complaints from disgruntled customers, French wireless carrier Orange has reportedly admitted to installed an unpublicized cap on 3G network download speeds.

According to iPhon.fr, the cap will be raised next month.

For French users, the issue came to light when users within the country began comparing their download speeds to those of iPhone users in neighboring countries. Germany's T-Mobile network, in particular, was cited as exhibiting the best 3G network by iPhone users and was able to achieve download speeds of 1,800 Kbps as opposed to France's Orange network reaching 400 Kbps.

As a result, calls began pouring into Orange's technical support lines. In some of these cases, technicians voluntarily altered the APN (Access Point Name) and other parameters tied to subscribers' iPhones. The result was a dramatic increase in speed for most of those subscribers, with some reporting that their speeds suddenly surged in excess of 3 Mbps.

Once the speed change had been noticed, users discarded the idea that the speed gap was the fault of Apple's hardware and began suspecting Orange of intentionally capping 3G download speeds. The users, now furious, argued that the artificial limitation was in violation of the service agreements and that theoretical HSDPA speeds approaching 7.2 Mbps had been offered.

When contacted by local media, an Orange representative reportedly confirmed that that the carrier has been deliberately limiting speeds for all 3G-capable phones on its network to 384 Kbps, saying the move was aimed at "preserving the stability of the network."

Following a meeting on Monday at its Paris headquarters, Orange said it will raise the download cap for iPhone users from 384 Kbps to one Mbps by September 15th.

Stay tuned for more details as they emerge and let us know if you've seen this on your end (especially if you're in the French market) over in the comments or forums.