Carrier Charges for FaceTime?

[Makosuke]

I just heard from a friend (who I'm almost certain is using T-Mobile with a new set of iPhones 5s) that she saw a significant extra charge on her most recent cell bill due to FaceTime usage.

I haven't actually seen the bill, but this has me entirely confused. So far as I understand, FaceTime uses data, period. If it's Wifi, it has nothing to do with carriers. If it's over the cellular network, carriers could disable it entirely (at least in the past--can they anymore?), but if it's enabled, FaceTime data is exactly the same as any other data. So long as you don't go over your data limit or incur roaming charges, it should cost nothing. And since T-Mobile doesn't have overage charges, they just throttle, it should be impossible to rack up extra charges unless you have data roaming turned on and were roaming when using it.

Am I wrong about this? Is there some fine print I've never heard of? I know I've used FaceTime video on T-Mobile's network with my own iPhone and the only extra charge I've ever had was when I accidentally made an international phone call to someone in Canada without recognizing the area code as non-US.

I'm certainly going to ask to see her bill so I can figure out what's up.

 

[CEmajr]

I just heard from a friend (who I'm almost certain is using T-Mobile with a new set of iPhones 5s) that she saw a significant extra charge on her most recent cell bill due to FaceTime usage.

I haven't actually seen the bill, but this has me entirely confused. So far as I understand, FaceTime uses data, period. If it's Wifi, it has nothing to do with carriers. If it's over the cellular network, carriers could disable it entirely (at least in the past--can they anymore?), but if it's enabled, FaceTime data is exactly the same as any other data. So long as you don't go over your data limit or incur roaming charges, it should cost nothing. And since T-Mobile doesn't have overage charges, they just throttle, it should be impossible to rack up extra charges unless you have data roaming turned on and were roaming when using it.

Am I wrong about this? Is there some fine print I've never heard of? I know I've used FaceTime video on T-Mobile's network with my own iPhone and the only extra charge I've ever had was when I accidentally made an international phone call to someone in Canada without recognizing the area code as non-US.

I'm certainly going to ask to see her bill so I can figure out what's up.

It certainly not due to FaceTime as I use it occasionally and it has never affected my bill. It's just data. Plus like you said, there are no data overages on T-Mobile.

 

[cmdrdredd]

If it's significant usage...like talking 20+GB they will probably assume you're tethering and using your cell data for your home internet. There was some articles about that before, where people had TMobile and were basically bandwidth hogs and they were going to start measures to curb their usage.

Maybe related?

 

[rigormortis]

inquiring minds want to know. have them post the actual bill here. cut out like personal information. we would like to see it .

post the actual charges so we can see it

even if you used more then 100 mb of roaming on another carrier's network ( domestically ) they wouldn't of charged you for it

maybe its possible that this person has a very old legacy plan , say from 2007. thats the only explanation i can come up with. back in 2007 if you did not have a data plan, t-mobile charged you per MB

 

[deeddawg]

I just heard from a friend ... I haven't actually seen the bill ... I'm certainly going to ask to see her bill so I can figure out what's up.

Pointless speculation until you see what's actually on the bill. We can hypothesize scenario after scenario after scenario to come up with possible explanations... all of which would be meaningless until there's some actual, real information to work with.

There's nothing special about Facetime, it's just data. To my knowledge no carrier has any Facetime specific charges.