AT&T Claims Controversial FaceTime Data Plan Requirement Doesn’t Violate F.C.C Rules

Yesterday, we reported that AT&T's controversial data plan requirement to allow FaceTime on their network in iOS 6 could be violating F.C.C rules, according to Digital advocacy group Public Knowledge.

AT&T has responded to the accusation, claiming that it is not bound by F.C.C rules in this case as FaceTime is a pre-installed app.

Here's a snippet from AT&T's response published on their website:

The FCC’s net neutrality rules do not regulate the availability to customers of applications that are preloaded on phones.  Indeed, the rules do not require that providers make available any preloaded apps.  Rather, they address whether customers are able to download apps that compete with our voice or video telephony services.   AT&T does not restrict customers from downloading any such lawful applications, and there are several video chat apps available in the various app stores serving particular operating systems. (I won’t name any of them for fear that I will be accused by these same groups of discriminating in favor of those apps.  But just go to your app store on your device and type “video chat.”)  Therefore, there is no net neutrality violation.

Although the rules don’t require it, some preloaded apps are available without charge on phones sold by AT&T, including FaceTime, but subject to some reasonable restrictions.  To date, all of the preloaded video chat applications on the phones we sell, including FaceTime, have been limited to Wi-Fi.  With the introduction of iOS6, we will extend the availability of the preloaded FaceTime to our mobile broadband network for our Mobile Share data plans which were designed to make more data available to consumers.  To be clear, customers will continue to be able to use FaceTime over Wi-Fi irrespective of the data plan they choose.  We are broadening our customers’ ability to use the preloaded version of FaceTime but limiting it in this manner to our newly developed AT&T Mobile Share data plans out of an overriding concern for the impact this expansion may have on our network and the overall customer experience.

 

So basically AT&T can put such restrictions on apps like FaceTime, but not on other VoIP apps like Skype as they're not pre-installed. That's just absurd.

 

If you think AT&T should change it's policy, you can sign this petition or you always have the option to switch to another carrier when you upgrade to iPhone 5, which will be released next month.

 

[via 9to5Mac]