AT&T Unshackles Facetime Slightly Still Not Accessible to Unlimited Users Thursday Jan 17 2013 10:14 EDT Originally, AT&T only allowed users to use Facetime over Wi-Fi. Then, they allowed Facetime over cellular, but only if users signed up for their new shared data plan with its $15 per gigabyte overage fees. Facing significant consumer criticism they've since slowly backtracked, and this week announced in a blog post that they'd kindly be allowing customers on "any tiered data plan using a compatible iOS device" to use functionality built into devices they own. AT&T is blocking unlimited data users from the service in the hopes that these grandfathered users will get annoyed and switch to pricier data plans. As is usually the case however, AT&T pretends that the reason for blockading off Facetime is the network congestion bogeyman. "When FaceTime over Cellular launched in September 2012, we explained that we wanted to roll it out gradually to ensure the service had minimal impact on the mobile experience for all of our customers," insists Mark Collins. The expansion is only after "ongoing testing," Collins claims. Granted no other carriers (small or large) have needed to take AT&T's approach to blocking Facetime, and AT&T is the only carrier who faces an official complaint by consumer advocacy groups about what they insist is a network neutrality violation. AT&T has previously used network congestion to justify all manner of anti-consumer and anti-competitive behavior, including imposing usage caps on DSL and U-Verse customers, the need to eliminate T-Mobile from the market, and, well, pretty much all of their lobbying efforts. "Until communications markets are truly competitive, users need to closely monitor carriers to prevent consumer-unfriendly actions," says Public Knowledge's John Bergmayer. " As AT&T's continued partial blocking of FaceTime, and recent revelations about its exemption of its own traffic from wired data caps shows, the temptation and means to violate net neutrality and try to pick and choose online winners and losers is always present." |
ChaplainSo It Goes Premium Member join:2002-10-11 USA |
Chaplain
Premium Member
2013-Jan-17 8:51 am
I'm UnlimitedAnd I don't care. Take your carrot on a stick and stick it up your hiney hole. I won't be switching out until they force me out. As the current generation so eloquently puts it; COME AT ME BRO! | |
| | ilikeme Premium Member join:2002-08-27 Stafford, TX |
ilikeme
Premium Member
2013-Jan-17 9:08 am
Re: I'm UnlimitedSame here. I hardly ever use face time, and can do without it being available over cellular. Unlimited FTW!!! | |
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to Chaplain
Poor AT&T how will they survive to their next paycheck? I bet they seriously need to block ALL port 80 traffic for unlimited users until they switch to a more expensive plan. This works because the EXACT same apps use 1/2 the data for the same services on a more expensive plan! Brilliant! Just think of all the network congestion they would save?! Plus the same argument for facetime applies here. "If ANY internet app uses ANY bandwidth it can congest the network so we can chose to block any competitive app for congestion." We need people to understand if every phone user used there VAST 1-2GB of data we sold them the network would turn into a pile of steaming worthless crap. Useable internet on AT&T is more rare than diamonds! | |
| | MajestikWorld Traveler Premium Member join:2001-05-11 Tulsa, OK 1 edit |
to Chaplain
Finally reached 5 gig of data and throttled. Speeds dropped from 51meg dn/23meg up to between .50 and .60 meg up/dn. Still streaming Netflix,Slingplayer,TuneIn, etc. with no problems. Over 8 gig now 15 days into billing period. Using app for free international texting with pictures. Calling Europe and Brazil free or 3 cents/mins. With Skype.
Don't need FaceTime. Never turned it on. | |
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pepe34807620
Anon
2013-Jan-17 12:59 pm
Re: I'm UnlimitedOut of curiosity, which int'l texting app are you using? | |
| | | | MajestikWorld Traveler Premium Member join:2001-05-11 Tulsa, OK |
Majestik
Premium Member
2013-Jan-17 3:11 pm
Re: I'm UnlimitedWhatsApp | |
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Bait and SwitchIt's blatenly obvious that T is going to take the opportunity to try to convert grandfathered people into capped versions by upselling them on some crap. If it means they only convert 10%, its a 10% win. By making it difficult:
1. People may just not bother to call and activate, T: WIN, no more network usage 2. People call and convert them to shared plan: T: WIN, no more unlimited 3. People call and get activated: T: Neutral They are simply providing what they should have in the first place. | |
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Re: Bait and SwitchI will never give up my unlimited plan. I don't even need it anymore since I work form home. But buckets o data don't work for me. So I'll just keep my unlimited plan as long as a I can. | |
| | elray join:2000-12-16 Santa Monica, CA |
to elefante72
said by elefante72:It's blatenly obvious that T is going to take the opportunity to try to convert grandfathered people into capped versions by upselling them on some crap. If it means they only convert 10%, its a 10% win. By making it difficult:
How quickly everyone forgets. AT&T had capacity issues with the iphone from the very first release. They're still trying to unlive that experience. Given that iphones consume more data than any other, and each successive generation consumes more than its predecessor, somebody has to apply the brakes to curb the i-ego crowd from once again bringing the network to its knees. There is nothing blatent about it. | |
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NezmoThe name's Bond. James Bond. MVM join:2004-11-10 Coppell, TX |
Nezmo
MVM
2013-Jan-17 10:28 am
Pointless...Said it a hundred times... use fring or Skype, etc who have no such limitations. This is not even close to a carrot for me. | |
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JasonOD
Anon
2013-Jan-17 10:45 am
ATT can't monetize unlimited...And that's really all there is to it. Apple could always negotiate a payment to ATT for network access for the built-in face-time app for all ATT data subscribers, but they haven't. | |
| winsyrstrifeRiver City Bounce Premium Member join:2002-04-30 Brooklyn, NY |
Network CongestionWhile I personally can't stand AT&T, I am curious about this situation. If unlimited users were allowed Facetime access, how do we know for a fact that it wouldn't eventually cause network congestion? It seems that many people use Facetime, from what I've seen of the Apple device users in my company.
Now, if giving unlimited users access to Facetime did cause network congestion, I suppose AT&T would be bashed in another headline suggesting a lack of investment in network infrastructure to support the demand. | |
| Ubee E31U2V1 (Software) pfSense Netgear WNR3500L
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This is laughableconsidering that anyone who has jailbroken their phone can simply bypass all of AT&Ts restrictions without AT&T ever knowing. Data is data, there is no real way for them to distinguish what is what, and facetime over cellular is crap anyways(been there, done that). All this public fuss over shit, and all it does is continue to make AT&T look worse. fucking hypocrites is what they are. They sell you data and don't want you to use it. I use an AT&T MVNO(ST wireless), and used 4GB of data last month, and 9GB the month before. Still going strong. | |
| viasatguy Premium Member join:2002-06-11 Carlsbad, CA |
FacetimeMy wife rarely ever exceeds 3 GB/month on her ATT cell despite doing quite a bit of web browsing and FB. FaceTime bytes over their cellular network would not add that much traffic as most of the time she's on our WiFi network at home when we'd use it.
Rarely would she use it while out and about.
Maybe I should start charging ATT for the bits used on my home Internet connection to operate the Microcell I have to use to have ATT cell service at my home.
I still can't believe hey have the audacity to charge/count airtime minutes for calls made at home using my own Internet connection. | |
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Re: Facetimesaid by viasatguy:I still can't believe hey have the audacity to charge/count airtime minutes for calls made at home using my own Internet connection. Those calls are using their licensed cellular/PCS bands.... | |
| | | viasatguy Premium Member join:2002-06-11 Carlsbad, CA |
Re: FacetimeTrue, but transmitted from the $150 AT&T Microcell I had to purchase because AT&T's cellular signals are too weak at my house - which is in a well populated suburb of San Diego, not out in the country somewhere.
So, yes their cell freq's for about 50' then my Internet connection the rest of the way to the BTS.
AT&T could allow free calling over WiFi like T-Mobile which would save the Microcell cost and also eliminate use of their cell freq's, but they chose not to. | |
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Re: FacetimeIf AT&T's signal sucks at your house, which is not out in the country somewhere, why didn't you simply switch to another provider? T-Mobile if you wanted to use UMA, or perhaps Verizon if they have macro coverage at your house?
Incidentally, if you have coverage outside of your house, then AT&T is doing their job. No cellular carrier promises indoor coverage, it's right there in your customer agreement, because as a practical matter they have no control over building materials that attenuate their signal. Every structure does so to a certain extent, sometimes the effect is negligible (wood frame, vinyl siding), whereas other times it will block even the strongest of signals (metal siding, foil backed insulation). | |
| | | | | viasatguy Premium Member join:2002-06-11 Carlsbad, CA |
viasatguy
Premium Member
2013-Jan-18 12:58 pm
Re: FacetimeFirst, my cell phone is provided by my employer and is on the AT&T network. I have a choice for my wife's phone, but for various reasons it's nice to have them on the same carrier.
Second, coverage outside the house is sketchy too. There is a football field sized zone of poor coverage around us, which I suspect is due to shadowing of the cell tower from a hill near by (the area surrounding San Diego is rather hilly).
Lastly, I have had Verizon in the past. The vocoders on the Verizon network are not (in my opinion) as good as those on the AT&T network. I really don't like the Verizon voice quality or the higher apparent delay I had in conversations.
But, back to Facetime. I don't think the bandwidth hit on the network will be as bad as AT&T thinks.
If they don't open it up soon, I may consider writing an app for her iPhone that endlessly transfers a file forth and back between the phone and my webserver whenever she's on the AT&T network.
I bet running that for a month would equal a year or two of our Facetime usage . . . | |
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Re: FacetimeWell, if your employer is paying for it, I'm not certain why you're upset. "Free" is hard to argue with, even if the quality isn't there. I hear ya on the vocoders, though in my experience (12+ years as a VZW customer) it's oftentimes the phones themselves. This is my own perspective, and yours may differ, but I've noted that Motorola phones sound the best, even when set to the same vocoder as other models. Most phones will let you tweak the vocoder, it's just a matter of figuring out the service/programming code. I switched to a Samsung phone a few months ago, mainly because I grew tired of Motorola's locked bootloader nonsense, and while I really enjoy the Samsung for ease of hacking/programming (currently running cyanogenmod and loving it), it's no where near as good as any of the Motorola phones I've owned in the voice quality/reception department. Voice calls are muddled, regardless of bluetooth use or not (ruling out the microphone/speaker in the phone), and the phone drops calls in areas where my Motorola phones had no issue maintaining a connection. The best voice quality I ever had on a cell phone was when I experimented with T-Mobile and had a Motorola V195s. T-Mobile was all GSM back then, didn't use half-rate, and the call quality was out of this world. Not quite as good as a POTS line, but damn near, and way better than any other wireless provider I've used. The Facetime block is nonsense, I'll concur with you. Games like this are the reason why I'll never do business with AT&T. They have just as much arrogance as Verizon, but at least Verizon has a reason to be arrogant. AT&T's network is nowhere near as good as Verizon's, yet their chutzpah is unrivaled. | |
| | | | | | | viasatguy Premium Member join:2002-06-11 Carlsbad, CA |
Re: FacetimeSmall clarification, employer pays for my phone, but I pay for my wife's.
I've got essentially unlimited minutes, but she's got to watch her minutes.
Now it's true that if we had decent coverage in the house and didn't have the microcell that she'd be using those minutes anyway. My gripe is that I get no credit for AT&T's use of my Internet connection when the Microcell is in the line. | |
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swarto112 Premium Member join:2004-02-17 El Dorado Hills, CA |
mistakenly switched off grandfthered unlimitedwhat rip off, im paying $50 more a month for the same usage and service had before...all so i can us the iPhone as a hotspot or facetime. I did the math wrong when i made the change ughh what an idiot, i was better off with paying for voice and/or data overages then this. | |
| | SiDg join:2012-12-19 united state |
SiDg
Member
2013-Jan-17 6:48 pm
Re: mistakenly switched off grandfthered unlimitedThat really sucks. Last yr I was looking into switching from one Tmobile plan into another at a mall Kiosk that appeared to offer a cheaper alternative. luckily I did'nt. I've realized one has to be careful with any little change one makes on their cell plan. Tmobile is usually good with problems, but I wasnt prepared for the headache that came with a simple 2yr renewal with 2 free phones. Pain in the A.. | |
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BiggA Premium Member join:2005-11-23 Central CT |
BiggA
Premium Member
2013-Jan-17 6:40 pm
Who cares?Facetime is useless anyways. | |
| SiDg join:2012-12-19 united state |
SiDg
Member
2013-Jan-17 6:54 pm
No more unlimitedWhy are unlimited users so protective of their At&t limited unlimited plans. Those plans have been pretty much neutered have'nt they. they throttle you at 3 gigs now dont they. I don't think they will be upping you back to trully unlimited anytime soon. | |
| | stridr69 join:2003-05-19 San Luis Obispo, CA |
Re: No more unlimitedBecause its still "unlimited". Peeps like that feeling. Get it? | |
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