Are you wondering if your carrier will charge you for an international call made through FaceTime? The answer is no. Due to the way FaceTime works, there is no way for your carrier or Apple to charge you for a FaceTime call. If you believe your carrier or Apple is billing you for a FaceTime audio or video call, you’re most likely to be missunderstanding something from your bill.
Does Apple charge for FaceTime?
To begin with, if someone would’ve charged you for FaceTime it would’ve been Apple, not your carrier. Apple owns and maintains FaceTime and the company provides this service completely free of charge for its users.
Is FaceTime free internationally?
Secondly, the other party who would’ve been likely to charge you indirectly for FaceTime would have been your cell phone carrier. Fortunately, just like WhatsApp, they cannot charge for any calls made using FaceTime. You can FaceTime someone in another country and it will not cost you any money.
Why your carrier cannot charge for FaceTime calls
Whether it’s a local or international call, you can be certain that your carrier does not have the ability to charge you for your call. This is because all the infrastructure for FaceTime is owned and managed by Apple. On top of that, FaceTime calls are end-to-end encrypted, meaning that your carrier cannot see who you’re talking to or the content of your conversation.
In conclusion, if your carrier is charging you for a FaceTime Audio or Video call, it is highly likely to be a misunderstanding either on your part or from them.
The only way for your carrier to charge you for a FaceTime call is if you use data roaming while using FaceTime.
The history of carriers charging for FaceTime calls…
When FaceTime Over Cellular first rolled out on iOS 6, AT&T tried to start charging users for this service. They thought that the other two major carriers at that time, Sprint and Verizon, were going to follow their lead and start charging for FaceTime as well. This ended up backfiring on AT&T. Verizon and Sprint did not inplemented a cost for using FaceTime and AT&T had to revert this decision.
“We are committed to our unlimited data and that means not charging for data consumption based on the application,” Sprint publicly announced.
As for Verizon, a spokeswoman for the company later revealed that all Verizon subscribers will be allowed to use “the data-intensive application with no additional charges, including those remaining on unlimited data plans.”