AT&T, perhaps one of the most hated brands in the United States, appears to be planning on charging for access to FaceTime over its cellular network when iOS 6 ships with support. Frankly, nobody is surprised in the least.
AT&T provided us with the following statement: “We’re working closely with Apple on the new developer build of iOS6 and we’ll share more information with our customers as it becomes available.” We attempted to bring up the same same error message when enabling the FaceTime over Cellular feature on a Verizon iPad WiFi + Cellular, but the feature enabled without an issue. AT&T charges for a separate plan to use Personal Hotspot on its network, and the carrier appears set to replicate that process with FaceTime over Cellular.
Data providers are struggling heavily to force their will upon their customers. They don’t want to be dumb pipes for data to flow through. It is quite clear that they want a set up where you have to pay for every type of service you use over their pipes. That wouldn’t be as vile if they didn’t already impose data caps. If you’re paying for capped access, any data used under your cap really shouldn’t be any of their fucking beeswax. If you’re not in the US, be glad you don’t have to deal with them. We’re just happy that other, still awful, carriers have access to the iPhone in the US now. Verizon’s plans aren’t great, but they are considerably better than AT&T.
Source: 9to5Mac
