entertainments: AT&T will require you to be on a Mobile Share plan to use FaceTime over cellular

Saturday, August 18, 2012

AT&T will require you to be on a Mobile Share plan to use FaceTime over cellular

iOS 6 will allow users to use FaceTime over the cellular network as opposed to just Wi-Fi. AT&T has released a statement saying they will not charge extra for the FaceTime over cellular feature but you'll need to be on one of their new Mobile Share plans in order to have access to it.

AT&T has declined to comment on initial reports that they may charge extra for FaceTime over cellular, until today:

AT&T will offer FaceTime over Cellular as an added benefit of our new Mobile Share data plans, which were created to meet customers? growing data needs at a great value. 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.

Some users on the iOS 6 beta were reportedly receiving a message when trying to enable the feature that said they'd need to call in to activate the service. This lead to speculation that wireless carriers may indeed charge extra or not allow it at all.

Sprint has already said publicly that they will not charge extra for the feature and Verizon has declined to comment yet. There's no doubt that FaceTime over cellular will use an incredible amount of data and it's reasonable to assume carriers may be concerned with that.

AT&T's solution seems to be to force customers onto new Mobile Share plans that may or may not be right for them. Considering carriers have already migrated to capped data plans, it would make more sense to allow it only any plan except grandfathered unlimited ones and just charge overages when someone exceeds their limit, Mobile Share plan or not.

If you're currently on AT&T does FaceTime over cellular provide enough incentive for you to switch to a Mobile Share plan or will you just go without?

Source: MacRumors

facetime over cellular