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Carriers Quiet on Prospects for FaceTime Over Cellular Networks with iOS 6
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It is a period of tiered pricing. Smartphone manufacturers, shipping from around the world, have won their first victory against the evil Cellphone Carriers. During the battle, rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Carriers ultimate weapon, the DATA CAP, an artificial bandwidth limit with enough power to destroy an entire wallet. Pursued by the Carriers sinister limits, cellphone users race home to dispute their bills, hoping they can remove their limits and restore freedom to the smartphone world...
Gonna go out on a limb and say this won't be available at launch on AT&T
I bought the Verizon version of the new iPad specifically because AT&T didn't offer the WiFi hotspot feature, and I'll buy my next iPhone from whichever wireless company offers FaceTime over 3G/4G.
Vote with your wallet.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Who's the joke on... the American carriers making money hand over fist or those Americans that give them that money every month and can't wait to lock in for another 2 years so that they can have the "5" instead of the "4" or "4s"? Every capitalism exploitation "joke" is easily overcome by the crowd not buying what they are selling. Else, the joke is really on the crowd that can't resist.
At some point the carriers are going to be facing a class action suit if they keep playing both sides of a coin. They had a leg to stand on when they were offering real unlimited data, but starting to impose limitations when they have data caps is ludicrous.
Also clearly not informed on the dynamics of how population density affects the huge investment required for **** to work. You can't compare Japanese carriers to those of the US.
It's because they were trying to avoid people getting blindsided by overage charges and them getting blamed for it. Now, it's all on the carriers to justify.
You can only sign up for ATT if you accept that you can't bring a class action suit.
For tiered data usage, things like this will be a huge cash cow.
But I admit, I do get so annoyed and tired of the carrier argument that the reason they went from unlimited to a tiered system is because of network infrastructure limitations. I understand that scant logic, and if it's true, for crying out loud, UPGRADE YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE!
We spend so much time in this country more concerned with profit rather than advancement. We no longer accomplish anything. We just comsume and profit. Comsume and profit.
How many countries are we behind in the world? We're 24th or something, I think. That is shameful.
But I admit, I do get so annoyed and tired of the carrier argument that the reason they went from unlimited to a tiered system is because of network infrastructure limitations. I understand that scant logic, and if it's true, for crying out loud, UPGRADE YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE!
We spend so much time in this country more concerned with profit rather than advancement. We no longer accomplish anything. We just comsume and profit. Comsume and profit.
How many countries are we behind in the world? We're 24th or something, I think. That is shameful.
VoIP is always going to have poor audio quality. Data doesn't have a direct connection. Packets bounce across multiple servers, providers, etc and sometimes get lost. So when the end user captures all that data, minus any losses or delays, the quality is crap. Providers like Comcast, Optimum Online, etc don't use VoIP. They actually co-mingle their voice data through the same lines and then route through phone lines from their data centers. This is how they get better audio quality. With the iPhone, voice is carried over cell voice network and video is over data. So while your video quality might lag, your audio will always (99.9%) be clear.
Facetime over 3G is carrier dependent in iOS 5; it is up to every carrier to enable it on their end. Steve Jobs mentioned it at WWDC 2011
Carriers can do what they want. Its their company. You don't like it, leave.
When people drop AT&T and Verizon and go to Sprint and T-Mobile, you'll see how fast their attitudes will change.
The idea alone of them being able to block Facetime is ridiculous enough as it is.
We pay them for a dataplan, we should be able to chose exactly how we spend that data.
Same thing with tethering. Our carriers here in Belgium even blocked that, or charged extra for it and we've always had limited data plans.
So you are going to sell me 2GB of data a month, but then make me pay extra for tethering because otherwise I might actually USE the data I am paying for?
And you don't see anything wrong with paying for data but having them decide for you on how to use it?
Honestly, **** you carriers.
We pay them for a dataplan, we should be able to chose exactly how we spend that data.
Same thing with tethering. Our carriers here in Belgium even blocked that, or charged extra for it and we've always had limited data plans.
So you are going to sell me 2GB of data a month, but then make me pay extra for tethering because otherwise I might actually USE the data I am paying for?
And you don't see anything wrong with paying for data but having them decide for you on how to use it?
Honestly, **** you carriers.
IIRC, 9to5mac reported up to 400 Kbps on a busy FaceTime call, and AnandTech reported 100 to 150 Kbps. In EACH direction. If my math is correct, for 10 hours of calls that's 0.86 to 3.43 GiB.
FaceTime over 3G would be horrendous. FaceTime over 4G will destroy people's pathetic 2GB/mo data plans.
Have you guys tried Skype over 3G? It's a slideshow for 20-30 seconds then disconnects.
There is a serious disconnect between the handset makers and the wireless carriers. This BS tiered nonsense is absolutely ridiculous. It has nothing to do with capacity, and all with profits. Little profit on SMS and Voice these days, so throw on the margin to the data plans. The industry is going backwards. There should be NO correlation between subsidized handsets and tiered data plans, and the fact that wireless carriers are doing so is completely artificial. Don't hold a subsidy hostage as a reason to force a customer to a plan that is worse for the customer.
For all of you who are still on grandfathered unlimited plans (such as myself), hold onto them for as long as possible. If that means paying $649 full price for the next iPhone 5, so be it. Stand your ground against this unbelievable industry regression and artificial subsidy / tiered correlation.
Have you guys tried Skype over 3G? It's a slideshow for 20-30 seconds then disconnects.
There is a serious disconnect between the handset makers and the wireless carriers. This BS tiered nonsense is absolutely ridiculous. It has nothing to do with capacity, and all with profits. Little profit on SMS and Voice these days, so throw on the margin to the data plans. The industry is going backwards. There should be NO correlation between subsidized handsets and tiered data plans, and the fact that wireless carriers are doing so is completely artificial. Don't hold a subsidy hostage as a reason to force a customer to a plan that is worse for the customer.
For all of you who are still on grandfathered unlimited plans (such as myself), hold onto them for as long as possible. If that means paying $649 full price for the next iPhone 5, so be it. Stand your ground against this unbelievable industry regression and artificial subsidy / tiered correlation.
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I don't want to buy what AT&T is selling. I want to buy what Apple is selling. Unfortunately, cellular providers are currently a necessary evil that are sucking us dry and stifling what Apple (and Google, etc.) can do.
Leave it to the greedy phone companies to knock technology backwards instead of forward.
You have companies like Apple introducing incredible technology and hell any phone maker these days...not only is it amazing we can talk verbally or textually to people anywhere in the world from a palm sized device...we can stream live two way video, watch video, play games, download, and surf the internet from the same device.
And instead of fixing their networks and updating the networks, the big two greedy carriers are setting limits and charging more for less. I've heard AT&T has blazing fast internet over phones but no one can use it because they can't afford the overages. Most people would pay a premium to get unlimited unthrottled internet but the companies are either too dumb to realize it or afraid it'll cost them money.
And yet T-Mobile offers unlimited data (although throttled) and Sprint offers unlimited/unthrottled data. Sure neither may be as "fast" as AT&T or Verizon but they sure as hell seem to be looking out for the consumer's wallet AND looking out for their own bottom line. Offer unlimited and people will come, make more money and invest some into the network to improve it more AND more people will come.
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This is why I refuse to ever get AT&T. I moved from T-Mobile to Sprint and I'll gladly pay a fair [price for unlimited slower data to the small guys who aren't trying to pocket every penny in my pockets!
You have companies like Apple introducing incredible technology and hell any phone maker these days...not only is it amazing we can talk verbally or textually to people anywhere in the world from a palm sized device...we can stream live two way video, watch video, play games, download, and surf the internet from the same device.
And instead of fixing their networks and updating the networks, the big two greedy carriers are setting limits and charging more for less. I've heard AT&T has blazing fast internet over phones but no one can use it because they can't afford the overages. Most people would pay a premium to get unlimited unthrottled internet but the companies are either too dumb to realize it or afraid it'll cost them money.
And yet T-Mobile offers unlimited data (although throttled) and Sprint offers unlimited/unthrottled data. Sure neither may be as "fast" as AT&T or Verizon but they sure as hell seem to be looking out for the consumer's wallet AND looking out for their own bottom line. Offer unlimited and people will come, make more money and invest some into the network to improve it more AND more people will come.
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This is why I refuse to ever get AT&T. I moved from T-Mobile to Sprint and I'll gladly pay a fair [price for unlimited slower data to the small guys who aren't trying to pocket every penny in my pockets!
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
As long as we can justify it, the "evil" will keep enjoying putting it to us. We're so quick to cast them as "evil" and Apple as "good" while finding so little fault with the latter for building a device depending on them and/or locking in with just one of them (perhaps the worst of them) for the first 4+ years of the device's existence.
Apple could become their own 3G/4G service provider. And/or they could adapt the Republic Wireless model. There's lots of options. But Apple likes the subsidy model "as is" and it exists because those paying the subsidies can make several times that cost by socking it to us consumers. But only the service providers are "evil".
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Actually, FaceTime over 3G isn't so bad. There are jailbreak apps that allow you to do it, and if both parties have a strong enough signal, it actually works ok. It's not quite as good as wifi but it's very useable.
I think there's a lot of needless worry here by carriers and users. Video calling over 3G is hardly going to replace regular phone calls or texting. And from experience (when I was jailbroken and made 3G FaceTime calls), most FaceTime calls took place at home where I was on wifi. Video calling won't take off in crowded places because you don't hold the phone to your ear, meaning you can't hear the other person.
On the subject of data usage, it's not a big deal. Engadget did a test and found that FaceTime used roughly 3mb/min. For users with a 1gb data allowance, that's almost six hours of calling per month, or about 12 minutes of video calling each day. I don't see that happening on a regular basis.
Maybe make facetime eat up minutes instead of data?
Say 1 facetime minute = 3 voice only minutes or something like that?
Edit:
I wonder if Apple deliberately kept FaceTime as wi-fi only initially, as opposed to cellular networks wouldn't let them as so many have assumed. This way, people use FaceTime regularly at home, realize it's kind of a gimmick and not something that they'll actually be using all that often, and then they won't saturate cellular networks with test FaceTime calls.
Say 1 facetime minute = 3 voice only minutes or something like that?
Edit:
I wonder if Apple deliberately kept FaceTime as wi-fi only initially, as opposed to cellular networks wouldn't let them as so many have assumed. This way, people use FaceTime regularly at home, realize it's kind of a gimmick and not something that they'll actually be using all that often, and then they won't saturate cellular networks with test FaceTime calls.