FaceTime on Apple's new iPad not allowed over LTE - Page 2

You seem to be confusing speed and bandwidth. Imagine the cellular network as a highway. You can increase the speed limit and the top speed of the cars traveling on it, but if it's a one lane road and you have enough people driving on it at the same time you'll still get a traffic jam.

FaceTime, DENIED !!
My guess was his beard. Can't have that blasting over the airwaves now can we.

On a serious note, its a bit silly, Skype works over 3G etc why cant FaceTime?

My theory is that Apple lawyers envisioned millions of users being charged loads of money by going over their data allowance from constantly using FaceTime and then turning round, blaming Apple and starting a huge lawsuit?

I would bet some serious money that it's not Apple but the carriers imposing this limitation. The carriers don't want that kind of traffic clogging up the pipes. And what about the caps and throttling? People still don't seem to get it that mobile bandwidth is not unlimited. There are only so many channels in a given frequency range of transmission/reception.

It may be true that bandwidth is the correct term, but in the common vernacular most people just say "speed." You are wrong to bring up that distinction in the context of this conversation, which has not (up until this point) been highly technical.

Bingo! +1

Probably. But, as you can clearly see in this thread, Apple gets the blame anyway.

sad... if the cell companies had just ran fiber optic cable for the "backend" of the cell tower, the usa would have had the worlds best cell phone system... except (now somehow off-topic) they have become a great waster of goverment money...

so instead of billionares wasting their money on narcissistic things like the election, why can't they get togeter and upgrade the internet to fiber... (would you rather pay for what you have, or pay the same for speed?).
or put another way why can't biilionares get a president that will get rid of the road blocks stopping 100Mbit internet?... instead i guess they prefer a presidnt that protects their interests.

just download the oovoo app and use it via facetime while using your 4g lte or 3g. I tried it and it works great on my iPhone 4s.

Single market yes, but Apple earns most of it's income from overseas markets. Pandering to whiny laggard US carriers is hardly the way to best compete overseas.


That was then, this is now.

So you are saying that you cannot make video call from your iOS device using 3G or 4G because carriers restrictions?!

But it's important distinction when talking about potential reasons why a tech isn't being incorporated. For one to say that LTE is fast enough is like one saying that if your car has a top speed of 200 MPH that you should be able to drive 1000 miles from one city to another in 5 hours. Speed isn't the sole factor to consider.

My background is computer network engineering. I've spent a lot of time on VoIP when it first started becoming popular. Consider that I can control the number of devices per network, that all connections are wired, and that all network speeds to each node is a constant yet even that had many issues because with VoIP you need it to be "real time" so those packets take a priority over everything else so the conversations don't have awkward pauses and there is no jitter.

Once you get that taken care of you need to make sure the rest of the network isn't bogged down by these priority packets. If that happens then packets get dropped, requests time out, etc. It's not good and unfortunately priority requests don't scale well. Note that FaceTime will never have the highest priority on a GSM/UMTS network. That will go to their voice calls first and foremost.

Remember, this is just VoIP, not VVoIP, so instead of just being voice it's voice and voice which is an entirely new level I've personally never dealt with on an enterprise scale. They have the wireless network speed. I think they probably have the backend bandwidth and necessary equipment to handle the load after 18 months sine its introduction for 100+ million devices that could potentially all FaceTime family and friends in a weekend to test it out (see Siri's debut with a couple million iPhone 4Ses) or during a holiday. These things need to be considered the same way you don't rebuild a highway based on off peak driving times. Again, all that's beside the point because it makes no sense to offer this with the new iPad when it seems ideal for iOS 6.

He's saying that FaceTime not being enabled to work on the cellular network is a carrier restriction. Jobs said as much in 2010, but there is probably more to the story than finger pointing away from Apple. Jobs also said FaceTime would be open sourced and we haven't seen that either. Frankly I'm just glad they have made Messages for OS X that includes FaceTime and iMessages in one app.

Google '3g FaceTime' to see how you can use FaceTime over 3G without jail breaking. I assume the same thing works with LTE.


Why are the two mutually exclusive? Couldn't it be about bandwidth - which is why the carriers were unhappy?


Is it the concept of a contract that has you confused? If the carriers insist on a clause in the contract, Apple has to enforce it - or lose the contract. Do you think customers would be happier if they lost their AT&T service entirely because Apple wouldn't enforce the terms in the contract?

It's a minor problem that's easily worked around. Most of the time when I want to use FaceTime, I have WiFi around. You shouldn't be using FaceTime when driving, you know. And when I don't have WiFi, I can make a normal call. And if that's not enough, it's easy enough to make it work (see above).

People just love to complain.

This^^^

Skype has consistently provided video chat on all sorts of devices and over all sorts of connections for years. No need to bother with the limited alternatives.

duhhhh, it's the phone company I think ...

The world is flat. Evolution is a myth. :-)

But seriously, asci, imho you're just wrong on this one. I'm not a techie, but the bandwidth/speed distinction was clear to me from the start, missed by a few, and mentioned correctly several times. We shouldn't be resistant to precision in discussing issues like this. Nor should we resist learning something new.

You know what's an insult? Coming here over-analyzing the obvious, making it look important.

Sorry. I can't help it if you're insulted because I'm more cogent and reasoned than you. All I can suggest is "Buck up!"

Simply use Skype. You then can do video conferencing over LTE. Simple.

LTE/4G is a high speed data-centric network and as this is all data traffic there should be no reason why any particular application is blocked.

FaceTime / Skype should be usable at rates sub-2Mbps which over wifi or broadband eventually ends up in the core network and out of a similar connection at the other end. A streamed video session is anywhere from 512 - 4 Mbps to be usable.

Over LTE, at rates > 100Mbps there will be no call-connection issues however each mast will not be able to sustain huge numbers of terminals but then how many people will be 'mobile' while making calls? Most users will be at a fixed location within reach of wi-fi / broadband access which should be capable of 8 - 100 Mbps, eventually and perhaps 1Gbps, if we live in the right country.

Whats the difference between watching a streamed video from You-tube/iPlayer or a FaceTime call from one side of the country to the other? Both are currently free to the user, both could be revenue generating but crucially 'free' P2P calls (video and audio only) are currently replacing a paid-for service which used to generate huge revenues and is dwindling faster that water levels in SE england. I say 'free' because the user still pays broadband connection / usage / mobile monthly or PAYG.

The network and usage has to be paid for whether fixed broadband or mobile LTE but like any new service, it will evolve and once the circuit-switched (PSTN) telephony is resigned to the museum and we only have the much-vaunted all-IP network running at speeds we can currently only dream about, we will all be wondering what the fuss was about.

Roll-on progress.

9to5 tested FaceTime when it first arrived and found that it used 14.7 MB (total, Tx/Rx) over a 5 minute call. Assuming my calculations are correct that's only 401.41 Kb/s. That's a lot lower than I would have expected.

Maybe we don't want to use that. At all. Ever.

The more I read about LTE, the more I get convinced that it is just a very weak technology because apparently it has such low bandwidth that it can't handle a reasonable amount of users at speeds greater than 64 kbps.

Why would anyone want LTE? - it can't handle useful data usage. What a tainted product...

I think you are mis-informed. Perhaps do some reading from reputable sites.

LTE is designed for high-bandwidth data rates - what people do with that and who pays is another matter.

Buy two "new iPad" (the device formerly know as 'Prince'... I mean 'iPad 3') and tether the second to the first. Enjoy.

Why, you don't like Microsoft Skype? It's such a lovely resource hog

Let's all sing: "Spider Pig, Spider Pig..." --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=714-Ioa4XQw

I'm actually worried about the future of messaging. AIM is dead, their staff cut down to people who answer phones for support. So… when AOL decides to notice that they've been bankrupt for a decade and finally flip the switch off, what happens to all iChat users? Yes, by that time we'll all be using Messages, but that doesn't mean that ALL of my contacts can be reached via iMessage. A vast majority of them still use AIM via iChat. So will Apple buy up AIM/the underlying tech?

Because SOMETHING has to be done with it, otherwise you'll see Skype get 95% marketshare and it will be Internet Explorer all over again. iMessage won't be able to compete, despite it being identical to AIM via iChat in every way, minus multi-person videoconferencing and screen sharing, and despite it being on every iDevice. Plenty of people don't want to set up iCloud accounts for it; they just want their former AIM stuff (that they didn't have to know how it worked) to keep acting the same (even if it's now a variant of iMessage that they don't have to know how it works).

People still use AIM? GoogleTalk all the way.

Sure, which is why every other video service works just fine.

Nice Apple //c in the background.

Apple may have agreed to the limit but it was the carriers that demanded it. or they wouldn't carry the iPhone. Remember they have to 'protect' their other customers as well. That's why they do this kind of thing.

And really talk about a first world problem. It's video chat, you aren't going to die because you can't do it at the drop of a hat in your car in the middle of the desert etc.

Jobs was saying was what he said. They have to work with the carriers and it hadn't (and still hasn't) been worked out.

Because Skype didn't have to sign a contract with the carriers in order to sell their phones?

Apple has nothing to do with this, they would love to have FaceTime working everywhere. It is the carriers that are to blame.

Blame probably isn't the right word either as I don't believe the carriers have a choice. If FaceTime was freely available the networks would come to a screeching halt.

I really don't get it, this has been the case since day one, that is restrictions (not just FaceTime) have been place on iOS by the carriers. Why do you think that you can't download apps over a certain size for example. It is directly related to trying to maintain a uality of service for all customers.

For those that don't think congestion is a problem look closely at what happens to cell networks when a natural disaster hits or their is a major public event. The networks quickly become congested because it is only possible to support so much data in a given RF spectrum. It is physics more than anything that dictates how a network behaves under load.

And that's the key. There's absolutely no logical reason why Apple would be the one behind this limitation. It had to have come from the carriers.

I noticed that right away too. I couldn't tell what model though. I thought it was an SI.

Lovely shade of yellow.

LOLOLOL Trying to mimic my dysfunction when I am having major mental breakdown. I love it when tax payer makes fun of a VET who is so screwed up he cant type right. Thanks by the way for paying my bills every month. If it wasn't for your tax dollars I would most likely be homeless or dead. Tank you from the bottom of my heart.

I don't understand the carriers' beef with Facetime. They charge users for data. It's not like users are making "free" phone calls.

Exactly, what a joke facetime restrictions are!!! Now that you have paid extra to have LTE connectivity on your iPad and pay the carrier extra too, they tell you that you can't use the bandwidth you paid for how you want to. Friggin' sad.

Here's a solution -

"Buy two "new iPad" (the device formerly know as 'Prince'... I mean 'iPad 3') and tether the second to the first. Enjoy."

Yeah carry around two iPads so you can use facetime on one of them!!