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AT&T Facing Net Neutrality Complaint Over FaceTime Restrictions
Today several public interest groups, including Public Knowledge, announced plans to file a net neutrality complaint with the FCC over AT&T's restriction of FaceTime on iPads and iPhones. Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood said, "AT&T’s decision to block FaceTime unless a customer pays for voice and text minutes she doesn’t need is a clear violation of the FCC’s Open Internet rules. It’s particularly outrageous that AT&T is requiring this for iPad users, given that this device isn’t even capable of making voice calls. AT&T's actions are incredibly harmful to all of its customers, including the deaf, immigrant families and others with relatives overseas, who depend on mobile video apps to communicate with friends and family." The groups have sent a letter (PDF) to AT&T asking them to reconsider their policy. The communications giant has previously responded to complaints by proclaiming their transparency and saying that charging more for being able to use FaceTime over mobile broadband is a "reasonable restriction."
AT&T is going to gouge the consumer for every cent they can. The irony, or course, is that Apple trumpets the fact that you can now make Facetime calls over a 3G/4G connection instead of WiFi. But the owner of the pipes (AT&T) is going to restrict how much of it you can use.
when/if the FCC rules against AT&T you can expect their paid-for polititcians to accuse the FCC of hurting 'net neutrality' how they have exceeded their mandate and that they should be dismantled in favor of something more corporation-friendly
-I'm just sayin'
Net neutrality has nothing to do with the ability of AT&T's network to complete a call without dropping.
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
While I'm not a fan of the Federal Government regulating everything to death I think this may be a place where it's needed. My thought is that you should be able to purchase data, voice, MMS/SMS or any combination of items or single item from that list. Second if you own your phone the cell company should be required to activate it and allow you to use it with any type of service from the previous list.
Specifically, the FCC’s "Net Neutrality" regulation represents an Obama campaign promise fulfilled on behalf of certain special interests, but ultimately a “solution” in search of a problem. The government has now interjected itself in how networks will be constructed and managed, picked winners and losers in the marketplace, and determined how consumers will receive access to tomorrow’s new applications and services. The Obama Administration’s overreaching has replaced innovators and investors with Washington bureaucrats.
I think we've found our problem.
I would like cell phone companies to charge entirely by data. Since the average person isn't tech savvy, they could say 1 minutes = x kilobytes. I would also like the option to use lower quality sound for my voice calls. SMS messages would cost close to nothing, as they should be.
The issue is that technology has finally merged data and "voice". This is the same problem your cable company has when you drop their offerings and subscribe to Netflix or Hulu. Much like the various **AA morons, you may expect the communications providers to fight a rear guard action to support the business model of 1980.
I guess FaceTime isrevolutionary after all.
Here I thought all this time that FaceTime is just another video chat technology, similar to ones that have been included with practically every webcam since the mid 90's, and similar to that which is available in practically every IM app (AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, etc.) and even facebook and Google Mail - except that it was only available for iOS devices and so if you wanted to video chat with a friend using FaceTime, they would have to go out and buy a compatible iDevice to make that happen, making it vastly less useful than the aforementioned.
But apparently I had it wrong;
I had no idea that these groups are unable to use the aforementioned alternatives. I didn't realize they are all forced to use iDevices on AT&T, and then forced to use FaceTime at that.
Seriously, though.. I'm all for filing the net neutrality complaint, but if these groups are so hard-hit, perhaps they should vote with their dollars and 1. not use AT&T where possible, 2. use an alternative video chat tech, perhaps preferably not on an iDevice in the first place unless Apple feels like opening FaceTime up to other platforms like they suggested they would.
So when is someone going to call the carriers out on all the other stupid crap they try to pull.
Communications will be free in the not so distant future, ubiquitous... the carriers are trying to fight it any way they can.
At some point the balance between bandwidth and availability will be such that you'll be paying for everything but the service. They'll charge you by the website visited, by the tweet sent, for every flipping bit... not the connectivity but the activity.
The carriers are battling to keep themselves from self inflicted foot wounds...
"We've got the biggest, fastest, best network... but we're sorry, we can't allow you to use it"
Protect us from having to evolve our business!
The right to offend is central to the right to free speech.
Restrictions: nice story
Go to someone else, AT&T isn't the only choice. People survived just fine on (now) $10 dumbphones, worst case.
People are so fucking entitled. Sorry, there is no "right to use stupid facetime on your hip Apple product".
All that will happen if you win is they'll just jack up prices for everyone to cover it. At least now it's just a tax on stupid people who pay $100+ a month on their cell phones so they can get a "cheap" $199 iPhone.
I truly hope that A) you can buy apple products and use any carrier you like, and B) you can use at least 2 carriers in most areas of the US. Given this, why then buy a lousy "data plan" from AT&T when it obviously enforces ridiculous restrictions?
Good to see that Apple gets some of its own medicine: artificial restrictions.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Here's my question... does net neutrality even come into play here? AT&T doesn't block FaceTime traffic at all. You fan jailbreak your phone, install 3Gunrestrictor (or whatever it's called), and use FaceTime just fine over AT&T's network (I've done this). The blocking is in iOS. I don't know the exact mechanism, but once you pay AT&T, they somehow have the keys to toggle FT over cellular on your device.
So, if this is the case (it's locked locally in device, AT&T with the keys from Apple), it seems to me that AT&T can successfully argue that this is not a net neutrality conflict since the it's the device, not the network or network blocking, preventing the service. That is unless net neutrality rules are very loosely worded, in which case it will be a battle of the lawyers over interpretation I guess (?).
I'd switch from AT&T if they weren't the only carrier with the iPhone on GSM (voice+data) and LTE in the US.
I love being a consumer in a world where corporations work for the customer. Wait, that was just a dream.
"That'll never compile."
Read anti-tying provisions of the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act.
This shit is illegal and you people are too scared to step up and sue.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I understand that AT&T is trying to argue that since FaceTime is a bundled app, they can restrict it however they like. If Apple cared, they could just make a FaceTime Pro app that is available in the app store and tell AT&T to go pound sand.
APL users are use to paying up the ass for being on the "priviledged" platform, even to the tune of 30% more than everyone else (see Dropbox), in the most restrictive ecosystem (along with a cell carrier that's equally restrictive)?
Why are they complaining now?
yeah att wont let me use face time on 3g even though i pay for data and still cant use it !!! i dont want a family share plan as its just me !!! its my data att i pay for it let me use facetime or lose another customer for live !!!!! will never use another att service period !! be fair att to your customers or go down like netflix did !!!!!
att is unfair to its regular data plan users !!! its our data att ... we pay for it regardless of which plan we are on !!! facetime on 3g or lose customers att !!!!!1
yeah att is blocking face time on 3g !!!! that not fair att !!!! all att customers not on the family share data plans cant use one of iphones greatest features facetime!!!! apple could make facetime an app in itunes and att customers could then download it and use it getting around att restrictions.http://facetimefaceplant.tumblr.com/
I hope FCC gets the balls, fines AT&T big time, and the case gets resolved with AT&T being guilty and not with some 'settled out of court for undisclosed amount'.
If I pay for a telephone line and the phone company tells me what type of conversations I can or cannot have over the telephone line that I get from them, they should be in a big trouble or illegally wiretapping my conversations. They should not be allowed to listen in what I'm talking about. It's my business and as long as I'm withing my allotted minutes, I should be able to carry any conversations without AT&T's approval. Same for the web access, it's not their fucking business what I'm sending, what protocol I'm using. As long as I'm withing my X-GB of artificial limit that they decided to impose, I should be able to send ANYTHING.
Come on mods. At least a thinly veiled attempt at bias.
I'd be interested to hear what part of that comment is worthy of a troll mod.