Questions have been raised about AT&T allowing only Mobile Share plan customers to access FaceTime over the cellular network.
Some people have raised red flags regarding AT&T's limits on the use of FaceTime on the upcoming iOS, alleging the restrictions could go against Federal Communications Commission rules.
"Over-the-top communications services like FaceTime are a threat to carriers' revenue, but they should respond by competing with these services and not by engaging in discriminatory behavior," senior staff attorney at Public Knowledge John Bergmayer said in a statement. Public Knowledge is a nonprofit organization that works on Internet law.
The "discriminatory behavior" that Bergmayer is alluding to is AT&T's newly announced rules on how its subscribers can use FaceTime's video call service. Last week, the network released a statement confirming that users on its upcoming Mobile Share plan can run FaceTime over its cellular network. But other plans still require Wi-Fi to use the video service.
Back in June, Apple announced that its latest mobile operating system, iOS 6, would allow users to carry out FaceTime calls through a data network in addition to Wi-Fi. Questions were raised about how much network data this feature would eat up, along with speculation that AT&T may charge its iPhone users for running the video chat feature over its cellular network.
Despite there being no extra cost to use FaceTime, the fact that some AT&T subscribers can use it over their cellular network while others can't could prove problematic with FCC rules, according to Public Knowledge.
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According to the New York Times, AT&T doesn't think the plan breaks FCC rules. "FaceTime is available to all of our customers today over Wi-Fi, and we're now expanding its availability even further as an added benefit of our new Mobile Share data plans," AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel told the Times.
CNET contacted AT&T for more information. We'll update the story when we hear back.
