14 DAY TRIAL // A leaked internal document from AT&T’s support division reveals that the operator has instructed staff to tell customers about a new payment plan for placing and receiving FaceTime calls over their cellular connection.
“AT&T will offer FaceTime over Cellular as an added benefit to our new Mobile Share data plans, which were created to meet customers’ growing data needs at a great value,” reads the document.
“With Mobile Share, the more data you use, the more you save. FaceTime will continue to be available over Wi-Fi for all our customers.”
A few notes are then offered, such as the system requirements for FaceTiming on AT&T’s airwaves (namely an iPhone 4S or a third-gen iPad with cellular networking capabilities), as well as the fact that FaceTime is not available in all countries where Apple sells its goods.
Also, iOS 6 will be required, so this cellular FaceTime thing is not going to happen until later this fall. So far, so good.
For those who aren’t very familiar with FaceTime, it’s a video chatting service developed by Apple for owners of an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. It initially worked over Wi-Fi only, but the company has made it work on cellular connections too, in iOS 6 (currently in beta testing).
iPhone carrier Sprint has already confirmed it would allow FaceTime over cellular without any special ties. So will Verizon. But not AT&T, Apple’s favorite iPhone carrier since 2007. And the media is on the case.
According to an analysis released by 9to5mac this weekend, AT&T should be ashamed to claim network usage penalties for FaceTime. One reason being Skype, which does pretty much the same thing and consumes pretty much the same amount of data, without any special payment plans.
Another reason, according to Seth Weintraub, is that “AT&T has moved just about all of its customers over to tiered data plans and even those who are left on ‘Unlimited Plans’ are still subject to throttling that would eliminate the ability to use video chatting applications. Users are paying for data that they use,” Weintraub points out.
Finally, even the likes of Netflix, Hulu, Crackle, and Amazon Video all use up similar amounts of data without any constraints from the carrier, the report adds.
So why FaceTime? Well, it seems it’s because they have a more credible excuse to push people into buying an expensive data plan.
And AT&T customers are already pissed over some of the carrier’s latest blunders. Perhaps the iPhone 5 will mark a change of heart for many customers whose contracts are set to expire this fall.