Great piece over at The Verge on why AT&T reversed its effective ban on the use of FaceTime over cellular networks. Why are they unlocking it, finally? They faced FCC complaints.

  • http://www.facebook.com/phillip.fr Phil Ferrante-Roseberry

    Doesn’t matter. Just got my Verizon phone today. Goodbye crappy AT&T service! 

  • http://www.facebook.com/dimitrios.papagiannis Dimitrios Papagiannis

    Wait till you see how much data that thing sucks down on Verizon.  I hope you’re in the top 1%.  I believe that there is still something wrong with ios6. If they are going to charge me for data I want to know where the heck it’s coming from. I have Verizon and the damn thing ate 1 gig in 3 days and I can’t get an explanation from anyone why it did that. I can’t believe they are getting away with this 98% of the people only use 2 gigs a month baloney.  Those numbers were generated way before LTE was being used. Don’t worry this is just the beginning.

    • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

      A gig in 3 days?

      Have you checked the data usage on your actual phone to make sure they haven’t made an error at their end?

      I can’t think of any way to use that much data without you knowing about it.  

      Although not to accuse you of the same, I have heard some ridiculous stories of people burning through data and then complaining to their providers because they haven’t ‘downloaded’ anything. “Nope, no downloading, just watched a view movies, updated all my software, checked my email every 2 minutes, used the phone as a GPS etc. just normal stuff – so where has my data allowance gone!!”

      • http://www.facebook.com/dimitrios.papagiannis Dimitrios Papagiannis

         I’m with you Nathan. It’s outrageous.  They are telling me things like it must be your apps.  The only app I downloaded was the face book app and that thing seemed to take up 181 megs on its own which seems just unbelievably high for just an app.  They are telling me that using location services will take up a lot of data, Verizon and Apple are being completely unreasonable in helping me understand where this data usage is is coming from. Last night the thing used 25MB and I was sleeping. (but of course it’s my fault)

        • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

          Hm that seems odd to me, not that I’m an expert.

          “The only app I downloaded was the face book app and that thing seemed to take up 181 megs on its own which seems just unbelievably high for just an app. ”

          That’s odd, I would have thought it would be a universal app, and the one on my 4S is 30mb (and theres no reason it should be bigger on a 5). I only ever download apps when I’m connected via wireless though, as they do vary in size quite a bit – some ported games can be a good few hundred megs.

          Location services will use data, but they should use hardly anything, just a few kb’s here and there.

          256mb over night, when not using the device, sounds like it has to be doing something unusual. My data package ignores a few things like web browsing and emails, but if my passage usage was that high id burn through my months allowance in a couple days. Literally.

          A good tip for when you’re sleeping though is to use Airplane mode, assuming you don’t need to receive calls when you’re asleep. It will kill all connections and save you a chunk of battery – good practice considering you’re asleep anyway.

          For what it’s worth I just checked my mobile usage (i.e. data that’s carried over 3G) and it totals 724mb downloaded – and that’s since I bought the phone, nearly a year ago.

          • Lurking_Grue

            I pulled 800megs since the start of the month.   I tend to pull around 5 gigs a month.  But I know I use the data.

          • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

            Out of curiosity, how do you pull that much mobile data? Video streaming?

          • Lurking_Grue

            Mostly a combination of streaming radio, podcasts, Audible, Google Play and dropbox.   Sometimes downloading nightly’s of Cyanogen.   

            I pay for unlimited data from Sprint and use it.   

          • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

            “I pay for unlimited data from Sprint and use it.”

            Power to ya!