Today in TechWill AT&T charge you extra for making FaceTime calls over your mobile internet?
From new mapping software to new gay-friendly icons, there are a number of cool features coming in iOS 6, the soon-to-be-released update to the iPhone and iPad operating system. One of the most anticipated of these features is the ability to use FaceTime over your 3G or 4G wireless connection with no wifi required. But according to a report from 9to5Mac, the new FaceTime feature may carry a heavy cost if you're an AT&T customer.
In a new developer's build of the iOS 6 software, if you try to use FaceTime without being connected to a wifi network, you'll be greeted with an error message requesting you contact AT&T. "To enable FaceTime over cellular on this account," the prompt reads, "contact AT&T at 611 or visit http://www.att.com/mywireless." The Facetime over 3G/4G functionality appears to work much like the built-in option to turn your iPhone into a wifi hotspot — usable, but you have to pay AT&T to enable it first.
Presumably, the issue here is the sheer amount of wireless data that FaceTime gobbles up. Since AT&T iPhone users are largely grandfathered into unlimited data usage plans, allowing everyone to use the data-hungry feature could prove a major strain on the company's 3G network.
This article was written by Fox Van Allen and originally appeared on Tecca
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