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Carriers Quiet on Prospects for FaceTime Over Cellular Networks with iOS 6

quickmac said:
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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Or buy up any small upstarts that threaten the duopolistic control over the entire market and keep nickel & dimeing the public so that you can earn bigger & bigger bonuses and ever-happier shareholders.

Those "more people" will come anyway, as evidenced by rates moving in only one direction over the years and yet more and more people jumping at the chance to lock themselves into 2-year contracts to pay $XX or $XXX per month whether they actually fully utilize those monthly services or not.
 
ArtOfWarfare said:
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.
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I'm pretty sure Apple doesn't think FaceTime is a gimmick.
 
I love my JB iPhone, I've been doing FaceTime calls over 3G for probably a year now.

AT&T can go and suck ........
 
AustinIllini said:
I'm pretty sure Apple doesn't think FaceTime is a gimmick.
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You're right, gimmick was the wrong word. I guess what I meant was "a replacement for all phone calls". Frequently, perhaps more often than not, a phone call is all you want/need.
 
Thunderhawks said:
You can only sign up for ATT if you accept that you can't bring a class action suit.
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right. total BS. its called something like one sided contract and that doesn't fly anymore. Give it time and there will be class action lawsuits against providers. Problem is for them its a lot more lucrative to do this now and bring in millions in cash and once lawsuits hit they will just settle them for x amount of millions and be done with it. End result will be lawyers will make millions, customers will get shafted and companies will still get to keep their profits without admitting any wrong doing and promising something useless in return.

On the lighter note when IOS6 comes out you will probably see facetime addon from carriers for a low monthly payment of $9.99
 
go figure, the carriers are not lining up to be the first on the bandwagon. I know I am surprised.
 
Most people have no clue how much data they consume

Unless the carriers spell out very clearly the 1 minute of FaceTime over Cellular = x amount of data, how can we have any idea how it will affect our data limit? Most of my friends and family have no clue how much data they consume. My daughter swears she doesn't know how she keeps hitting the cap, which I believe because apps sometimes work in the background, which consume data even when the iPhone is in our pocket.

If you knew that one 10 minute call would consume say a gig of data, we might figure that the video call isn't worth it.

My guess is that they like customers being ignorant of how much data they consume so they can hit them for overages.

I am still on a grandfathered unlimited plan from the original iPhone and I will not change my plan for anything unless they force me.
 
I only know 5-6 people who even use FaceTime anyway. It's not a huge deal.

BTW Unlimited data in the U.S. is the same as offering king crab legs at the buffet. 2/3 of the people will have/use some, while 1/3 does most of the damage. (This is just an analogy, no empirical data stands behind my opinion.)

My brother and I both have unlimited data on our family plan, he uses 4-7gb a month (on his Droid Pro) and I use <2 (on my 4s). The point is some people will just go overboard without even knowing/caring. There is finite infrastructure in the U.S. I would prefer not to pay the price for other people using up the bandwidth. As an aside, at 3g speed I don't need unlimited because I'm way too impatient to wait for some of the bigger stuff to come through over 3g versus WiFi.
 
I can personally confirm that Facetime 3G is enabled and works in iOS 6 Beta 1. I have performed several calls this way and the quality is actually quite good, even in spots with bad coverage. FYI, I have AT&T in the USA. Hopefully AT&T doesn't put restrictions on this before the public release.
 
viperGTS said:
You're joking right? It was just disabled. A simple plist edit fixes that, and FaceTime over 3G becomes available.

Do some research before claiming I spread "misinformation."
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plist edit? Just go to facetime in settings and toggle on "Use Cellular Data".
 
To simply cripple the image resolution, frame rate, and color depth when the network node is nearing capacity could do it.

Apple already made deals with carriers to facilitate visual voice mail, so they could also do network management coupled to the device and OS as well.

If the network node is busy it could even go all the way down to voice plus occasional still image.

If I were designing it I would also add a feature that saves the original full content on both sides so it can be non-live replayed in full.

Rocketman
 
"now you can enjoy facetime over cellular for ONLY $20 bucks on top of your already overcharged bill + tethering"
 
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rafaltrus said:
"limitations imposed by the carriers" :mad:

Cellular carriers have to be pushed a little by the Congress... too much power they have!
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I know for a fact VZW was ready to roll FT on 3G with the 4S and Apple put the kibosh on it. Not a carrier issue.
 
Amazing Iceman said:
What's the big deal with FaceTime, what does it do more in the sense of putting a load on carriers, that Skype, ooVoo, Tango and others don't do?

What's the big deal about blocking FaceTime??? Just let it be. Not having it available over 3G just makes no sense.
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Because it comes stock on the phone, is natively integrated, and since there is no setup involved, that gives it a much higher chance of actually being used by a large number of average consumers.

There is much less of a chance that I can just call up a random person I know and they just happen to have ooVoo on their phone.
 
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