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AT&T bringing FaceTime over cellular calls to all customers?
AT&T may be quietly enabling FaceTime over cellular for customers on unlimited data plans, according to a report in MacRumors. AT&T originally limited cellular FaceTime to customers on the carrier's new shared data plans. After a public outcry, AT&T later expanded FaceTime to customers who are connected to the carrier's 4G LTE network and have either a tiered or shared plan. MacRumors forum user kre62 noticed that his iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 now support FaceTime over cellular even though he is on an unlimited plan. Several other users in the MacRumors thread confirmed this report, and BGR also claims its two iPhone 5 handsets have FaceTime enabled on unlimited data plans. AT&T has not announced that it is activating cellular FaceTime service for unlimited data plans, so it is possible that this is just a glitch. We have reached out to AT&T to confirm these reports and will update the post when we receive a response. [Editor's note: When we tried activating FaceTime on an iPhone 5 with an unlimited data plan it popped up the familiar warning to call AT&T and purchase a plan that supported the feature so at this time we cannot confirm this is happening on any large scale.] To check if FaceTime over cellular is now available on your iPhone, you should first reboot your iPhone for the service to go into effect. Then open Settings > General > Cellular and scroll down to see if the FaceTime toggle is on. If it is on, then you should be able to initiate a FaceTime call over AT&T's cellular connection.
AT&T CEO responds to paid 3G FaceTime rumor, says it's 'too early' to talk pricing
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has responded to rumors that Ma Bell plans to add an additional levy upon those planning to use FaceTime over cellular. Speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm conference, he's quoted as saying that he "heard the same rumor," but that it was "too early to talk about pricing." Of course, given that response, it looks like the company has at least been mulling an additional levy for the feature. At present, he says his primary focus is to work with Apple on ensuring the video calling technology works smoothly across his company's data network, with iOS 6 due to arrive later this year.
iPhone 4 jailbreak enables FaceTime video calling over 3G
We'd actually already hacked up a 3G FaceTime video call using an iPhone 4 and a MiFi, but now that Apple's latest handset has been jailbroken, you can toss the extra hardware -- you just need a little Cydia app called My3G, which lets you run WiFi apps over 3G. FaceTime video quality appears to be unaffected, but from what we've seen the framerates suffer depending on your connection -- pretty much what you'd expect to get when running a video stream optimized for high-bandwidth connections on a smaller pipe. Still, it's instantly the best reason to jailbreak your phone -- check a video after the break. P.S.- If you're averse to jailbreaking, remember that Fring lets you make video calls over 3G without any shenanigans -- and unlike FaceTime, you can also video call non-iPhone users. Just sayin'!
