Back when Apple announced that FaceTime could be made over cellular networks, there was some hubris over how AT&T might charge their subscribers to allow them to date that. Thankfully that was not the case although the catch is that you would be required to have a tiered data plan. Now it looks like AT&T is trying to do the same, but this time they will be targeting Blackberry’s BBM Video Chat feature. This was discovered when the folks at N4BB tried to initiate a BBM Video Chat, only to find out that an error message appeared, prompting them to either connect to a WiFi network, or they must “enable Video Calling” on their AT&T account.
According to N4BB who spoke to an AT&T rep, they were informed that BBM Video Chat will only be available to subscribers with the mobile share plans, which is essentially the same requirements needed in order to enjoy FaceTime on AT&T’s network. While this isn’t a huge deal, it might annoy some AT&T subscribers who currently enjoy their plan and have no plans to change, but aren’t able to enjoy BBM Video Chat or FaceTime simply because of that. It’s definitely worth taking into consideration if you plan to use Blackberry’s BBM Video Chat feature sometime down the road.
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