Facetime over 3G

[det2004]

This is one feature I was really hoping for, especially after many speculated that it would be available in IOS 5. I barely ever use Facetime because both I and the person I am calling have to be on wifi for it to work, and that is rare. I would use it all of the time if I could use it over 3g.

I have tried some of the apps on the app store including skype and fring, but cannot find anything that even comes close to the facetime experience. Does anyone know of a good facetime-esque app out there?

Any news on at&t ever allowing facetime over 3g>

 

[kevintech]

I would use it all of the time if I could use it over 3g.

That's exactly why they try to limit it to just WiFi use.

 

[drb1992]

I would imagine that facetime doesn't work on 3g for 2 reasons.
1. Data plans aren't unlimited anymore (with the exception of Sprint and those who godfathered it) and facetime would eat up your data fast.
2. 3G just isn't fast enough to have a good video quality on facetime (with the exception of AT&Ts 3g).

 

[det2004]

1. Data plans aren't unlimited anymore (with the exception of Sprint and those who godfathered it) and facetime would eat up your data fast.

This is exactly why I don't understand what's holding this up. Seems like if at&t has a good number of their iPhone customers on capped plans that they would be thrilled to let them consume all the data they want and rake in the overage charges.

 

[drb1992]

This is exactly why I don't understand what's holding this up. Seems like if at&t has a good number of their iPhone customers on capped plans that they would be thrilled to let them consume all the data they want and rake in the overage charges.

True, but then people would just stop using it.

 

[nickrinaldi]

i have facetime over 3g via jailbreak and its very hit or miss. if one person is on wifi and the other on 3g it works ok. if both people are both getting good 3g signals at the same time it works so so, if one person has crappy 3g signal it will freeze up within 30 seconds for the most part. that's my experience.

wifi to wifi works best but yes its rare that both people have access to wifi at the same time. i've used skype more often because even though the video quality isn't nearly as clear, at least it works on 3g without too many hiccups

 

[Trauma1]

There's always been the option of jailbreaking and using something like 3G Unrestrictor.

But FaceTime isn't that great on 3G.

 

[aztooh]

First of all, to answer your question, try Tango.

And FaceTime is something I didn't even think about. When they introduced it last year, they made a big fuss about how they wanted it to become the industry standard. Guess they became too busy trying to figure out how to talk to the iPhone instead of working on that.

 

[chrismac2]

Now that AT&T and Verizon have capped data plans, I really don't see what the holdup on this is. With data caps, you have to monitor your data usage so you don't go over. What does it matter to them whether it's me watching Netflix, for hours, verses a couple phone calls with FaceTime? They're perfectly fine letting me watch netflix all day long. But make a five minute phone call to my parents with FaceTime.....NOT ALLOWED---USES TOO MUCH DATA!

I think they're overestimating how many people are going to be using FaceTime to make calls.....

 

[Intell]

2. 3G just isn't fast enough to have a good video quality on facetime (with the exception of AT&Ts 3g).

Some WiFi conenctions are actually slower than average AT&T 3G speeds. Yet, the FaceTime quality looks just as good.

 

[chrismac2]

Oh! and how's this for being back-*ssward. I can enable personal hotspot on my iPhone, join my iPad 2 to the iPhone's hotspot, and use FaceTime on my iPad 2....and AT&T doesn't care. But just doing it from my iPhone, not allowed.