AT&T won't charge fee for FaceTime over cellular, but only Mobile Share customers can use it

Following speculation that AT&T may charge users for FaceTime over cellular use in iOS 6, the carrier today provided a clarification on the situation. AT&T has released a statement explaining that it won't charge customers for FaceTime over cellular use, but only those customers signed up for one of its upcoming Mobile Share plans will have access to the feature. That means that customers still gripping tight to an unlimited data plan or some other data offering won't be able to use FaceTime over cellular, though AT&T notes that those users be able to FaceTime over a Wi-Fi connection. The full statement from AT&T:

"AT&T will offer FaceTime over Cellular as an added benefit of our new Mobile Share data plans, which were created to meet customers’ growing data needs at a great value. With Mobile Share, the more data you use, the more you save. FaceTime will continue to be available over Wi-Fi for all our customers."

While I suppose that it's nice that AT&T won't be charging an extra fee for FaceTime over cellular, it's definitely disappointing to learn that only customers signed up for a Mobile Share plan will actually be able to use the feature. It seems unlikely that many AT&T customers that've been holding on to grandfathered unlimited plans this long will switch to a Mobile Share offering just to use FaceTime over a cellular connection, so it looks like those subscribers will need to stick to a Wi-Fi connection whenever they feel like getting their video chat on. AT&T's Mobile Share plans officially launch on August 23.

Via MacRumors