On Wednesday of this week, AT&T issued a sales restriction of one iPhone per customer. By Thursday the restriction was lifted. The carrier has gone back to its old policy of selling up to three iPhones per customers.

Yesterday, AT&T made a statement explaining the reversal: “Our No. 1 concern is to make sure that every customer who wants an iPhone gets one,” an AT&T spokesman said. “We thought yesterday that the fairest way to do that was to limit customers to one iPhone. Then we realized that we have sufficient inventory to go back to our original policy.”

The spokesman refused to talk about inventory shortages that have been reported in the United States and Great Britain. The rumor mill has speculated that AT&T’s move to restrict sales to one unit per customer is evidence that carriers are making room for a new smartphone version of the iPhone, and that a 3G capable iPhone will ship in the near future. The AT&T spokesman took some sparkle off the rumor by stating, “We have sufficient inventory, and we continue to have them in our stores.”