iMessage; FaceTime; Voice Call???

[badman89]

Clearly iMessage and FaceTime are outstanding features offered by Apple. I can message so many people for free, and I can video call so many people for free.

However, I've always wondered why they don't have a similar offering for voice calling? It seems like it would be easy enough to implement. I make lots of international calls to people with iPhones, and I would save a whole lot of money if these calls were free.

I wonder if Apple made some sort of promise to AT&T that they wouldn't implement such a feature

 

[Zmanbaseball2]

Clearly iMessage and FaceTime are outstanding features offered by Apple. I can message so many people for free, and I can video call so many people for free.

However, I've always wondered why they don't have a similar offering for voice calling? It seems like it would be easy enough to implement. I make lots of international calls to people with iPhones, and I would save a whole lot of money if these calls were free.

I wonder if Apple made some sort of promise to AT&T that they wouldn't implement such a feature

$$$$$ is why they don't and that's what carriers are for.


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[badman89]

$$$$$ is why they don't and that's what carriers are for.


Sent from my iPod touch 5G using Tapatalk 2

My vision of the future is that carriers will no longer sell phone calls and text messages. Carriers will only sell 3G / 4G data plans, and everything else (calls, texts, video calls) will be through the data plans.

Obviously, there are some powerful lobbies that will try to delay this development at all costs - but they cannot prevent it from happening.

 

[Zmanbaseball2]

My vision of the future is that carriers will no longer sell phone calls and text messages. Carriers will only sell 3G / 4G data plans, and everything else (calls, texts, video calls) will be through the data plans.

Obviously, there are some powerful lobbies that will try to delay this development at all costs - but they cannot prevent it from happening.

My vision is that wifi will become the 3G/4G and carriers will go out of business



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[badman89]

My vision is that wifi will become the 3G/4G and carriers will go out of business



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Well, in that case, all that's happening is that you're transferring your business from AT&T / Verizon over to Time Warner / Comcast. But the added infrastructure cost to implement WiFi on such a large scale would also be huge.

 

[Zmanbaseball2]

Well, in that case, all that's happening is that you're transferring your business from AT&T / Verizon over to Time Warner / Comcast. But the added infrastructure cost to implement WiFi on such a large scale would also be huge.

Router and network equipment are getting so cheap and my ISP optimum is adding more hotspots to a ton of restaurants in my area


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[osofast240sx]

My vision of the future is that carriers will no longer sell phone calls and text messages. Carriers will only sell 3G / 4G data plans, and everything else (calls, texts, video calls) will be through the data plans.

Obviously, there are some powerful lobbies that will try to delay this development at all costs - but they cannot prevent it from happening.

This is already happening VoIP and VoLTE. Carrier eventually only provide LTE and LTEa services. Metropcs was the first carrier to deploy LTE only, they completely skipped 3G.

 

[scaredpoet]

My vision is that wifi will become the 3G/4G and carriers will go out of business

That's all fine and good if all you ever do is talk/text/chat from your home and starbucks. But if you ever want to do these things from locations outside of typical wifi spots, then someone needs to build out a network and provide connectivity. And if you're not serving food, or books, or building the cost into a Home ISP plan that customers are paying for, then the network provider needs to recover the cost to build their network out somehow.

So what does that provider do? They charge money... and effectively become a carrier, just like 3G/4G carriers.

Oh yeah, one other thing to consider: Guess who provides that "free wifi" at Starbucks, Barnes and Noble, McDonalds and similar places? AT&T. It's subsidized partially by Starbucks/B&N/McDonalds paying for some of the costs, and the rest of it is subsidized by people who pay for 3G/4G services on AT&T's network, as well as DSL/U-Verse users paying their bills, too.

Mom & pop stores don't get as sweet a deal though: they pay for the connection and the access points and hope that it will keep customers at their business longer, buying more things to offset the cost. Wifi is NOT free.


Besides, as someone who deals with Wifi deployments regularly as part of my day job, I can tell you that Wifi is NOT a perfect replacement for 3G/4G. Just like 3G/4G is not a suitable replacement for DSL, cable modems, fiber or other wired broadband. They each compliment each other, and getting rid of one really shows the flaws of the others when they try to replace what's lost.

 

[osofast240sx]

That's all fine and good if all you ever do is talk/text/chat from your home and starbucks. But if you ever want to do these things from locations outside of typical wifi spots, then someone needs to build out a network and provide connectivity. And if you're not serving food, or books, or building the cost into a Home ISP plan that customers are paying for, then the network provider needs to recover the cost to build their network out somehow.

So what does that provider do? They charge money... and effectively become a carrier, just like 3G/4G carriers.

Oh yeah, one other thing to consider: Guess who provides that "free wifi" at Starbucks, Barnes and Noble, McDonalds and similar places? AT&T. It's subsidized partially by Starbucks/B&N/McDonalds paying for some of the costs, and the rest of it is subsidized by people who pay for 3G/4G services on AT&T's network, as well as DSL/U-Verse users paying their bills, too.

Mom & pop stores don't get as sweet a deal though: they pay for the connection and the access points and hope that it will keep customers at their business longer, buying more things to offset the cost. Wifi is NOT free.


Besides, as someone who deals with Wifi deployments regularly as part of my day job, I can tell you that Wifi is NOT a perfect replacement for 3G/4G. Just like 3G/4G is not a suitable replacement for DSL, cable modems, fiber or other wired broadband. They each compliment each other, and getting rid of one really shows the flaws of the others when they try to replace what's lost.

Now that T-Mobile has stepped their game up, I do not connect to wifi at Starbucks, restaurants, friends homes. the only place I connect to wifi is at home.
But 3G/4G can replace DSL/ broadband for home solutions.

 

[ucfgrad93]

My vision is that wifi will become the 3G/4G and carriers will go out of business.

How is that going to work on long stretches of highway?

 

[scaredpoet]

But 3G/4G can replace DSL/ broadband for home solutions.

If you never intend to connect an actual desktop or laptop for Internet access, then sure. But even tmobile places usage caps on tethering. As long as usage caps remain the norm, I'd rather pay $50 a month for unmetered wired usage than run up effectively hundreds of dollars of month in daa overages.

 

[osofast240sx]

If you never intend to connect an actual desktop or laptop for Internet access, then sure. But even tmobile places usage caps on tethering. As long as usage caps remain the norm, I'd rather pay $50 a month for unmetered wired usage than run up effectively hundreds of dollars of month in daa overages.

i was quite surprised to see a cap on teathering on T-Mobile. Before the carrier update I had unlimited teathering. I'm sure there is a hack but why should I have to hack my phone.