Juan Monroy

Speaking of retractions…

During a bout of insomnia this morning, I read that AT&T was allowing its users with grandfathered unlimited plans to use FaceTime over cellular. AT&T had famously blocked FaceTime from this set of users to presumably entice them to switch to an individual or shared metered data plan.

After restarting my iPhone 5, I was able to use FaceTime over cellular.

But then this afternoon, I was demonstrating the process of turning this on for a fellow AT&T customer with an unlimited iPhone data plan, but the process didn’t work. When I looked at my own phone, the setting for using FaceTime over cellular had been turned off, and I could not turn it back on.

A handful of other AT&T customers with unlimited data plans in New York City area are reporting the same issue of not being to use FaceTime over cellular although they were able to do so before.

Meanwhile, AT&T has stayed mum about this whole issue, suggesting that it is a technical glitch not a policy switch.

I wish AT&T would consider those with grandfathered plans as loyal customers. We’ve clearly stuck with you, AT&T, throughout the years. This is despite having an unusable voice network when I had an iPhone 3G and an iPhone 4. Let us have FaceTime as a bonus and throttle us if we cross whatever arbitrary threshold you’ve set for us.