AT&T to Restrict or Charge for FaceTime Over 3G/4G in iOS 6? [Updated With AT&T Statement]

Leonard1818 said:

...for now. You really think it's going to stay that way? wow.

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I don't think it will stay that way. I think in a couple of years market forces, tech advances, and infrastructure improvements will make wireless data plans much cheaper (per gigabyte).

On the other hand, our phones and pads will be more powerful and more data hungry, so we'll pay about the same as we do now. We'll just get more data for the same money, and we'll get it faster, and in more places.

If you're nostalgic for 2005, when using FaceTime on your phone didn't cost an arm and a leg, remember that in 2005 you probably weren't streaming video on your phone.

All carriers have things that suck about them.

And AT&T hasn't announced anything official anyways. They're not going to charge for a feature on one damn phone.

And if they do... JAILBREAK!

It's not that hard people.

And to all those that are saying "IM GOING TO SPRINT! WAHWAH!!"

Guess what? Sprint's data network is ********** awful! The iPhone w/Sprint is gimped so bad, its sad. Slow, slow 3G, and no voice and data at same time. Go ahead and make that mistake.

jav6454 said:

3G Unrestrictor it is then.

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Just when you thought it was safe to no longer need to jailbreak. I just hope Verizon doesn't think they will charge for Facetime on cellular.

lowonthe456 said:

Yep and if ATT thinks I'm paying extra they can kiss my ass. I hope to god T-MO gets the iPhone this year.

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I would imagine you can get an unlocked iPhone & walk into T-Mo & get started. The next iPhone should come with an unlocked option. It will be full-priced, but it's an option.

pbush25 said:

I posted the same thing on the 9to5 forums; as soon as they posted that story, I attempted to make FaceTime calls with my iPhone that was updated to beta 3 today. I had no issues placing and receiving 4 separate FaceTime calls over 4G this evening. Maybe it's just my phone, I don't know. But it worked fine for me.

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If you live in an HSPA+ area of AT&T coverage, they may call that 4G (& not restrict) as opposed to all of the older devices that only run 3G. Just a thought.

If AT&T does in fact charge people for using FaceTime over 3g/4g, then this feature is really useless. How many people will actually pay for this? I can't imagine this will be a popular feature.

I dunno seems kinda of obvious AT&T is going to block those w/ grandfather data similar to tethering. That is all. No big deal.

michealwillard said:

It would be awesome if Apple threw some of the $100 billion at a nationwide Wi-Fi system. That coupled with the long-standing Apple TV expansion would allow me to cancel Comcast and AT&T. It would be fantastic to pay for just one service.

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You realize Apple is an international company right? Non-americans wouldn't be happy subsidizing such a project.

LOL@americans.
Here tethering is free, facetime will be, too. And DATA is super cheap.

Pompiliu said:

LOL@americans.
Here tethering is free, facetime will be, too. And DATA is super cheap.

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And the downvote button was removed why again?

JohnDoe98 said:

You realize Apple is an international company right? Non-americans wouldn't be happy subsidizing such a project.

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Nationwide now, worldwide soon. They do have a history of rolling out products and services in the US first and expanding overseas. I'm not in favor of leaving the whole world out, it just is a matter of taking the steps forward.

Ill just keep it jailbroken because I like admin rights to my devices and I wont leave att because I quailify every 11 months for an upgrade. If I jumped ship it would be 2 years or full price. I am also unlimited data for now anyway. :-/

Daalseth said:

I'm there. I have a minimal, pay as you go phone that does voice and texting only. Month to month no contract. I use it for a couple or three calls per month. I use my iPod Touch almost continuously for Skype and FaceTime and IM and e-mail and Apps, and all sorts of things on WiFi.

Cellular is a great technology that is being destroyed by thugs that make a drug cartel look honest.

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See, now thats beginning to make more sense to me. A serious consideration to downgrade our cell service. Sure, I'll loose some convenience (no data) when NOT within WiFi range, but nothing I can't live without until I am within range.

stewartm78 said:

Ill just keep it jailbroken because I like admin rights to my devices and I wont leave att because I quailify every 11 months for an upgrade. If I jumped ship it would be 2 years or full price. I am also unlimited data for now anyway. :-/

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"unlimited data?" hehe

it's THROTTLED after 3 GB, to the point of being barely usable!

that doesn't sound "unlimited" to me.

Buh-BYE AT&T. Good riddance!

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GravityEyes said:

Oh really? Well f--- AT&T - I'll jailbreak.

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I've been jailbroken since day 1 -- have used MyWi to tether, and 3G Unrestrictor to do FaceTime over cellular, all the time.

And guess what?

I'm STILL switching from AT&T. Because they can go f--- themselves. I'm sick of their greedy, shady crap... and I hate them with a fiery passion. Life's too short to agree to send so much money so regularly to a company I despise so much. It's gotten to a point that I'd actually be fine spending more money with Verizon, simply because it'd be impossible for me to hate any company more than I hate AT&T.

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LoraoTX said:

I only wish that the next iPhone on Verizon would be capable of doing voice+data at hte same time. I'll switch in a heartbeat!

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That's a core feature of LTE. So yes, it will. Mark my words.

ATT is a bottom-tier carrier that is famous for fleecing its less-informed customers. What did you expect from them?

Switch to Sprint or Verizon and stop paying these crooks.

duddy said:

This is why I love Verizon's new plans. It's like they are saying, "Pick how many gigs you want and use it however you like, we don't care."

It's how any carrier SHOULD handle it any way considering they are capping you.

But I have a theory, perhaps the people that are receiving this message probably still have unlimited data plans.

I'm on an AT&T capped plan and have not received this message after 6 4G FaceTime calls. (I'm on Beta 3)

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I don't. Verizon's plans are incredibly expensive if you don't use much voice or text. Which of course less people are. I mean 50 dollars for a whole GIG? That you share with other devices (and add on 30-40 for them depending on if they are a smart phone or not?).

I like AT&T's current plans more. I'd rather not have facetime and still be able to get a much cheaper bill than be able to get facetime, pay more money, and have far less data to use that facetime along with everything else I use for my phone (I use almost 2 GBs a month alone). At least I am not forced to pay for an unlimited voice and texting plan, neither of which I need (imessage works well for me since most of my friends have iphones and I barely call anyone and the people I call the most are on AT&T so it doesn't use many of my minutes).

I'm honestly hoping that Verizon's plans don't do so well with them cause you know if Verizon does it, AT&T usually follows and they can up the prices very easily by going to Verizon's plan (especially since few people care about minutes or texts so they can't really sell much of those anymore anyways. Verizon's smart there. Make it look like you are generous by forcing them on the unlimited plans on the stuff they don't use much of and make the stuff they use a lot of expensive to buy. Sure, lower the price a tad so it looks like a good deal compared to your old unlimited voice/text plans but not as cheap as if they could buy a small minutes plan that would fit their needs better).

Oh, and I'll remind you facetime uses Data. So hope you don't plan to use it much on Verizon cause it'll probably eat a decent amount of data of which Verizon charges ridiculous prices now (I mean think about it, 50 bux for one gig vs. AT&T's 30 bux for 2 gigs...). Depending on how much you facetime, it may be cheaper to pay AT&T the extra fee (especially if you don't call or text much so on AT&T you could be only paying for the minutes you need and not even pay for texting at all if you don't need it)!!!

Such greed

dnguyen said:

The thing is you are already paying for it if you're paying for data...

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You missed the point. He's not paying for unlimited minutes which he does not need nor for texts which he does not need. He probably can get a small voice plan (like I have) since he doesn't call much and not even pay for a texting plan.

Me and my roommate pay AT&T 107 dollars including all fees and taxes and we have the unlimited plans. That's because we have the lowest voice minutes plan and we don't pay for a texting plan (totally not worth it to us. especially now with smartphones where you can find other ways to text). Even if we didn't have unlimited (which I realize is not an option anymore if you don't already have it, and so far AT&T hasn't said they won't grandfather it unlike Verizon), it would be the same price for each of us to get 2 GB's each. For Verizon's plan it is at least 30 dollars more for us to share 1 GB (that's not including fees and taxes)... yeah, not going to Verizon. Sure, we get unlimited texting and unlimited voice which we didn't have before, but we don't need it (shoot, we have a ton of rollover minutes from the minutes we don't use on our miniscule voice plan). So why would we want to pay for something we don't need and would not use? Even if I really must have facetime over 3G, AT&T will still probably be cheaper. And if not, it's not worth 30 dollars more to do facetime over 3G, especially considering I already use almost 2 GBs a month without using facetime (so I'd probably have to spend more for more data with Verizon if i really wanted to do Facetime on 3G with them).

Where as Verizon you are forced to pay for an unlimited voice and texting (and made slightly cheaper to look like a deal which it is not if you don't need that). That alone could easily make up for the fee for Facetime depending on what AT&T decides to charge. Especially considering how overpriced Verizon is for data now (And the fact that facetime will be eating that very expensive data, not your unlimited voice/texts).

Kariya said:

They do...for now.

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That's odd...

Fofer said:

"unlimited data?" hehe

it's THROTTLED after 3 GB, to the point of being barely usable!

that doesn't sound "unlimited" to me.

Buh-BYE AT&T. Good riddance!

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I've been jailbroken since day 1 -- have used MyWi to tether, and 3G Unrestrictor to do FaceTime over cellular, all the time.

And guess what?

I'm STILL switching from AT&T. Because they can go f--- themselves. I'm sick of their greedy, shady crap... and I hate them with a fiery passion. Life's too short to agree to send so much money so regularly to a company I despise so much. It's gotten to a point that I'd actually be fine spending more money with Verizon, simply because it'd be impossible for me to hate any company more than I hate AT&T.

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That's a core feature of LTE. So yes, it will. Mark my words.

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As long as your willing to skip an iphone generation every other year. I'm not.

Not sure if this has been said or not yet but I wonder if they will charge if you are on a grandfathered unlimited account and not on a tiered account. Anyhow AT&T sucks.

samcraig said:

btw - does anyone know if this is account based (sorry for not reading the whole thread..)

IE - is the message popping up for everyone - or just users with unlimited data.

I have always maintained that those "blessed" with being grandfathered into the unlimited plan - I can understand ATT charging for tethering and something like facetime. It could be a huge drain on resources.

However - if you buy "x" gigs a month - it shouldn't matter at all how you eat that up. Tethering, facetime, whatever.

For a restaurant - it's one thing to restrict the all you can eat buffet with some rules so you don't kill profit margins. It's another to let someone order off the menu and then insist that they eat their dinner exactly how you want.

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I would agree up until 3.5 months ago when my daughter was born. Now video chatting (we don't use face time - we use tango since it's platform agnostic and can include everyone and via LTE too) is great so that both sets of grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunts can see our daughter all the time since they live around the US.

There are some great niche uses for video chatting.

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I'd agree there are some niche markets like a newborn baby, puppy love and someone on an very extended assignment/deployment away from home and um, cyber sex with a loved one that apply.

But I've always wondered if the feature will reach the critical mass Apple expected. In most phone interactions, the visual element adds little to the conversation.

Glad I'm on Straight Talk. EF ATT!

Pompiliu said:

LOL@americans.
Here tethering is free, facetime will be, too. And DATA is super cheap.

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Yea cause that's what makes a country a great place to live

Pompiliu said:

LOL@americans.
Here tethering is free, facetime will be, too. And DATA is super cheap.

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Right, but almost everything else is less expensive in the U.S. even after sales tax -- clothing, food, cars, electronics (including the iPhone and iPad hardware). So go ahead and laugh over the few dollars savings you get for tethering and data. Pointless. But if it makes you feel better, go ahead.

So people are saying that they cannot facetime with ios6 beta3? I'm able to facetime over 3g, but I have a LTE plan instead of an iPhone plan.

pogiboi said:

So people are saying that they cannot facetime with ios6 beta3? I'm able to facetime over 3g, but I have a LTE plan instead of an iPhone plan.

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Some folks are saying after resetting their network settings they can no longer facetime over cellular.