FaceTime on Apple's new iPad not allowed over LTE

Posted:
in iPad edited January 2014


A new report has confirmed that Apple's third-generation iPad will not be allowed to make FaceTime calls on an LTE network.



The Verge performed some testing late Wednesday and discovered that the new iPad will need to connect to a Wi-Fi network to use FaceTime. Though the news hardly comes as a surprise, since Apple's 3G-enabled iOS devices are unable to use FaceTime over 3G, it does put to rest questions about whether the added download speeds from LTE might open up the feature for 4G cellular networks.



Report author Dieter Bohn found the LTE FaceTime restriction to be "doubly frustrating" because Verion LTE iPads can generate Personal Hotspot Wi-Fi networks that would presumably allow other iOS devices to make FaceTime calls via the same LTE connection.



Late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs unveiled FaceTime alongside the iPhone 4 in 2010. The video calling service launched as , but Jobs promised that Apple would "work a little bit with the cellular providers" in hopes of bringing it to mobile networks.











Early reviews of the iPad show that LTE service on the device is significantly faster than previous-generation 3G networking. All Things D journalist Walt Mossberg said he averaged download speeds of 17 megabits per second on Verizon, while a colleague averaged 12 mbps on AT&T's network. The New York Times' David Pogue tested the iPad in three cities and got speeds ranging from 6 to 29 mbps.



The new iPad goes on sale at 8 a.m. local time in 10 countries on Friday. The device will be available in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland and the U.K, as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.













[ View article on AppleInsider ]

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 83
    dunksdunks Posts: 1,254member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post




    Report author Dieter Bohn found the LTE FaceTime restriction to be "doubly frustrating" because Verion LTE iPads can generate Personal Hotspot Wi-Fi networks that would presumably allow other iOS devices to make FaceTime calls via the same LTE connection.



    Can anyone confirm if this is currently possible with an iPad 2 tethered with an iPhone?



    I thought the distinctive tethering icon means apple devices treat tethered wifi connections differently to vanilla wifi.
  • Reply 2 of 83
    tylerk36tylerk36 Posts: 1,037member
    What is it? Is LTE so new that they don't want the Face Time hogging the LTE data network? Is the iPad "3" user on Facetime such a hog they wanted you to switch to 3G? IS it possible to switch to 3G on the new iPad?



    The Picture above shows a man who is upset over this and is actually trying not to use his new iPad for a Frisbee.
  • Reply 3 of 83
    saareksaarek Posts: 1,520member
    FaceTime works great over 3G. I use it all the time on my jailbroken iPhone.
  • Reply 4 of 83
    kasakkakasakka Posts: 55member
    I hate how Apple keeps imposing these unnecessary limitations. It should be up to the user to decide if his or her connection is good enough and data plan can handle the traffic.
  • Reply 5 of 83
    aaronjaaronj Posts: 1,595member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by kasakka View Post


    I hate how Apple keeps imposing these unnecessary limitations. It should be up to the user to decide if his or her connection is good enough and data plan can handle the traffic.



    You are making two assumptions heres:



    1) Apple imposed it.



    2) It's unnecessary.



    Neither of those are really clear at this point. Sure, they both might be true. Maybe Apple just wants to piss you, personally, off. Or, possibly, there's a reason it is this way?
  • Reply 6 of 83
    postulantpostulant Posts: 1,272member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by kasakka View Post


    I hate how Apple keeps imposing these unnecessary limitations. It should be up to the user to decide if his or her connection is good enough and data plan can handle the traffic.



    The carriers impose these limitations, not Apple.
  • Reply 7 of 83
    s4boness4bones Posts: 22member
    so many guys complaining about no 5mp front cam and no facetime over LTE...



    imagine hundreds (if not thousands) of people jamming up one LTE tower...



    there's no way the carriers would allow it.
  • Reply 8 of 83
    postulantpostulant Posts: 1,272member
    If I purchase an unlimited plan, why is it being throttled?



    Why is it when I send a video text, it's pixelated to the point it's unrecognizable? But I can watch Hulu Plus all day over 3G and it looks great.



    Why isn't AT&T allowing the hotspot feature at launch?



    If I pay for a certain amount of minutes, why does AT&T care if I spend them tethering?



    Why can't I FaceTime over LTE? Because of the integrity of the network?
  • Reply 9 of 83
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dunks View Post


    Can anyone confirm if this is currently possible with an iPad 2 tethered with an iPhone?



    I thought the distinctive tethering icon means apple devices treat tethered wifi connections differently to vanilla wifi.



    Good question.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by saarek View Post


    FaceTime works great over 3G. I use it all the time on my jailbroken iPhone.



    But how would that affect the network if all devices were allowed to have realtime 2-way QoS A/V streams? Things get hairier when you scale up, especially when you scale up from a fraction of a fraction of a percentage to 100% at once. If you can't do it in stages then you better be damn sure it can handle the load when you can or you end up, in this case, making the app/device look bad and the negatively affect everyone on that tower/network.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tylerk36 View Post


    What is it? Is LTE so new that they don't want the Face Time hogging the LTE data network? Is the iPad "3" user on Facetime such a hog they wanted you to switch to 3G? IS it possible to switch to 3G on the new iPad?



    Quite the opposite. Verizon has already felt the crunch of the iPhone on their 3G network that by the time the iPhone 4S was coming out they were offering permanent double data for the same price for anyone that would sign up for a 4G-capable phone. Right now LTE is wide open.



    I wouldn't have expected Apple would launch cellular FaceTime with the iPad first. While it could allow for a certain level of testing before releasing in the 6th gen iPhone it even if it failed miserably people would still expect, and even if it wasn't an issue it would not be a clue as to what would happen when the more popular device that is all cellular connected and connected when you leave the store.



    I expect this is coming but I would expect it with iOS 6.0 and next iPhone.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by kasakka View Post


    I hate how Apple keeps imposing these unnecessary limitations. It should be up to the user to decide if his or her connection is good enough and data plan can handle the traffic.



    Sure, let's not let a company decide what's best for their products, let's socialize all companies so it's up to the people to decide what is included.
  • Reply 10 of 83
    dunksdunks Posts: 1,254member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Postulant View Post


    If I purchase an unlimited plan, why is it being throttled?



    To avoid individual customers from degrading the network to the point that other customers begin to cancel their service.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Postulant View Post


    Why isn't AT&T allowing the hotspot feature at launch?



    They don't want to give a service away for free that they can otherwise charge for. They figure they have clout because of their larger network compared to Verizon.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Postulant View Post


    If I pay for a certain amount of minutes, why does AT&T care if I spend them tethering?



    Because you have already paid for those minutes. They want to sell you something else. Also FaceTime utilises a data connection rather than a phone conversation connection.



    We had to deal with the same kind of "brilliant" CEO thinking when Sol Trujillo was at the helm of Telstra. Boy wasn't the Australian public glad to see that revolving door kick him up the ass on the way out of the country.
  • Reply 11 of 83
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    edit: Pipped by Dunks.
  • Reply 12 of 83
    foljsfoljs Posts: 390member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Postulant View Post


    If I purchase an unlimited plan, why is it being throttled?



    Because "unlimited" is a stupid marketing word that doesn't translate to anything.



    Did you think AT&T's network doesn't have a limited capacity?



    Laws of physics: they do. So, how would one have "unlimited speed" then?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Postulant View Post


    Why is it when I send a video text, it's pixelated to the point it's unrecognizable? But I can watch Hulu Plus all day over 3G and it looks great.



    Because, errr, Video text is compressed?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Postulant View Post


    Why isn't AT&T allowing the hotspot feature at launch?.



    finite resources?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Postulant View Post


    If I pay for a certain amount of minutes, why does AT&T care if I spend them tethering?



    Because of finite capacity/resources? Tethering means more load. Their infrastructure doesn't scale proportionally to the usage, so that everyone can use it to the max and still be happy.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Postulant View Post


    Why can't I FaceTime over LTE? Because of the integrity of the network?



    Yes.
  • Reply 13 of 83
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dunks View Post


    I thought the distinctive tethering icon means apple devices treat tethered wifi connections differently to vanilla wifi.



    If there is a difference, they forgot to add one more restriction. A few months ago I was in the UK for a holiday with family, and had my sisters iPhone tethered to mine (I have a better data plan for going abroad).

    So when she plugged in her phone at night it decided to go ahead and make an iCloud backup on the 'WiFi' network... Expensive mistake!
  • Reply 14 of 83
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    Well that's a bit silly isn't it... we finally get Cellular networks the speed of Wi-Fi and they don't allow you to use FaceTime. It just goes to show the reason it was not allowed on 3G was never about bandwidth, it was about keeping the carriers happy.
  • Reply 15 of 83
    f1ferrarif1ferrari Posts: 262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ascii View Post


    Well that's a bit silly isn't it... we finally get Cellular networks the speed of Wi-Fi and they don't allow you to use FaceTime. It just goes to show the reason it was not allowed on 3G was never about bandwidth, it was about keeping the carriers happy.



    Bingo! Based on this, Facetime's wifi only limitation wasn't Apple based, it was carrier imposed.
  • Reply 16 of 83
    While this is all well and good that Apple see fit to be mommy and daddy regarding my data usage in the US, I happen to be in Europe where they actually encourage data usage. Tethering is allowed/encouraged and Skype runs freely on the networks here. Apple needs to look at Geographical locations and decide rather than using the "one size fits all" US model. Sorry that US operators are into screwing their customers. It's not the case where I'm at, nor in other parts of Europe.
  • Reply 17 of 83
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ascii View Post


    Well that's a bit silly isn't it... we finally get Cellular networks the speed of Wi-Fi and they don't allow you to use FaceTime. It just goes to show the reason it was not allowed on 3G was never about bandwidth, it was about keeping the carriers happy.



    1) I don't think we can conclude it wasn't bandwidth-based back in 2010 when FaceTime was introduced since the 3G HW in the iPhone 4 and the cellular networks at the time could handle the load of a single device. The bandwidth issue could come from multiple devices, or at least a bottleneck of processing that much QoS data.



    2) The same with 3G applies to 4G. The extra speed means nothing if that is choked off, but as previously noted I don't think that would happen nor is it germane as FaceTime carrier updates probably wouldn't get announced until a major iOS or iPhone update.



    3) It's not just about the carriers being happy, but it's about us being happy with the carrier. Make a few customers happy at first for a feature or make every one unhappy because even basic network access slows to a crawl. Would that happen? I have no idea without looking at their infrastructure, but they have had 18 months to prepare.



    4) It's not about it technically being to get a 2-way video chat with a jailbroken or 3rd-party service as those will not as simple or as used as Apple's default service, especially when it goes live. For example, even Siri, which is a lot less data to sent and received, had a lot of problems its first week and that was only with new iPhone 4S. Now that was the server-side processing, not the data network, but the result of an overload is the same: an unhappy customer.
  • Reply 18 of 83
    cnocbuicnocbui Posts: 3,613member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by F1Ferrari View Post


    Bingo! Based on this, Facetime's wifi only limitation wasn't Apple based, it was carrier imposed.



    So the carriers are writing iOS are they? Or do you mean they requested Apple to nobble their products? If it is that latter then it is not carrier imposed, it is Apple enforcing the limitation.



    The trouble with Apple imposing such restrictions is that their devices are sold world-wide. Carriers in other countries, perhaps Japan and South Korea, might well have the capacity to allow these features to operate, but with Apple universally imposing such restrictions because of US carriers requests, users in such countries are in effect being penalised by the collusion that occurs in the US.
  • Reply 19 of 83
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post


    4) It's not about it technically being to get a 2-way video chat with a jailbroken or 3rd-party service as those will not as simple or as used as Apple's default service, especially when it goes live. For example, even Siri, which is a lot less data to sent and received, had a lot of problems its first week and that was only with new iPhone 4S. Now that was the server-side processing, not the data network, but the result of an overload is the same: an unhappy customer.



    But Europe has had video chatting for a while. While it may have been limited to local countries it was used and encouraged by the operators. I'm not sure but again, Apple should let the users decide or at least let the country operators decide. A blanket ban of 3G or LTE FaceTime will guarantee that it will stay a niche idea and nothing more.
  • Reply 20 of 83
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cnocbui View Post


    So the carriers are writing iOS are they? Or do you mean they requested Apple to nobble their products? If it is that latter then it is not carrier imposed, it is Apple enforcing the limitation.



    Let's go with the simplest answer that was given by Steve Jobs back in 2010 and then build up to the real answer from there. Jobs said they had to work with the carriers and it wouldn't be ready in 2010. What jobs was saying is :It isn't included because it would have made FaceTime look bad thereby making Apple look bad.





    Quote:

    The trouble with Apple imposing such restrictions is that their devices are sold world-wide. Carriers in other countries, perhaps Japan and South Korea, might well have the capacity to allow these features to operate, but with Apple universally imposing such restrictions because of US carriers requests, users in such countries are in effect being penalised by the collusion that occurs in the US.



    Sure, but that happens in business. In business you can't treat everyone an individual market. Last Last year Verizon iPhone 4 buyers got a phone that considerably less talk time (2G) than competing phones because Apple used a Qualcomm Gobi chip that was only set for CDMA/CDMA2000. Could this have cost them some business for those that were looking specifically at this feature? Sure, but it prepared them for making the iPhone 4S and now the iPad 3 better cellular devices and probably has shrunk their costs down in the process. Not exactly a bad long term move. That's how companies work. If Apple does make a huge contingency for a carrier it'll probably be for China Mobile's GSM/TD-SCDMA/TD-LTE network.
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