AT&T Finally Gives FaceTime to Everyone

Rebecca Greenfield

After complaints from users and consumer advocacy groups, AT&T has announced that anyone with any kind of data plan can use Apple's FaceTime feature over data services with a compatible iPhone. Since the last iPhone announcement in the fall, the wireless company required users to sign up for the new data-share plans to access Apple's native face-to-face video calling, a move perceived as a way to force people away from cheaper and unlimited data options.

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There never appeared to be no technological reason why some iPhone users could FaceTime without wireless and other couldn't. About two months ago, however, me AT&T users noticed that tiered data plans suddently got access to FaceTime. AT&T today confirmed in a corporate blog post that the new FaceTime options will arrive by way of a slow roll-out. Soon everyone with either an iPhone 4S or 5 can FaceTime all over the place. "[We] expect to start rolling the update out to customers on an ongoing basis beginning in the next couple of weeks," wrote AT&T Vice President Mark Collins.