FaceTime in China to US on Verizon iPhone 4S

[MSM Hobbes]

As the title states, I'm curious if a person while in China can use the FaceTime feature on their Verizon iPhone 4S, when connected to local (China) wifi? Any extra charges, or other concerns / suggestions? Shanghai and Tongling (central interior) would be the two main cities. According to this older thread https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/981672/ it should be… right?

 

[Applejuiced]

As long as you're connected to wifi you can do facetime anywhere you are.
Doesnt matter if you're in china, Australia or the south pole.

 

[Mrbobb]

WIFI has nothing to do with what cell carrier the phone belongs or subscribes to. Thankfully as AppleJuice says, WIFI is WIFI no matter ur are on Earth or on the Moon.

 

[Clint1583]

My wife travels for business to different parts of the world and we have found that video chatting/FaceTime works poorly in most country's outside the US. Not sure if its the distance or just poor wi-fi in other country's. I know it shouldn't matter but it does.

 

[RevTEG]

FaceTime over wifi is free and works great as long as your connection is good. I travel to many countries and use FaceTime all time when my wife and kids are not with me. Works great. Free!

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And yes it works in China. I've used FaceTime between many places in Asia and the States.

 

[MSM Hobbes]

Thanks for the replies / help… just wanted to make sure, as this is my first time to China, and want to be able to connect with my family.

 

[Mrbobb]

My wife travels for business to different parts of the world and we have found that video chatting/FaceTime works poorly in most country's outside the US. Not sure if its the distance or just poor wi-fi in other country's. I know it shouldn't matter but it does.

Despite massive investment on world wide telecommunication infrastructure, the on-going problem is, IS NEVER ENOUGH. FaceTime (video) takes bandwidth, more than voice, and certainly more than text.

Not too long ago, making simple voice-to-voice international calls gets you echos and seconds delays, it has gotten a lot better. But of course now that we take voice comm for granted, we throw in video.

The problem is exacerbated when u go through WIFI. Do you know the WIFI bandwidth available on either end? Unless you own both WIFI you don't really know. Then VOIP (Voice Over IP or Video Over IP) hopefully goes through a QOS path. (QOS=assign voice and video traffic high priority) Currently I do not think ISPs have standardized QOS for public video transmission across international boundaries.