The reason this doesn't work over here in America is that essentially, way back in 2003 or 2004, when the rest of the world was well on their way to rolling out the then new UMTS (aka 3G) standard, part of that included a sub-layer protocol integrated into it's data services that allowed for QoS. Basically, bandwidth priority for video calls. Yes, people over there were making full fledged video calls on their cells phones, 8 years ago, with no WiFi needed. True story. (And Steve Jobs made it sound like FaceTime was something "new" and "revolutionary..." Heh, bite my metallic Android @$$!)
Anyway, long story short, Cingular/AT&T Wireless, for whatever reason or another, never decided to implement the protocol stack necessary to make video calls over UMTS. I know they briefly experimented with instant video messaging (where you could be on a call, take a video, and then send it as a message), but supposedly that never caught on. THEN, when video calling really
might have caught on, they still had an exclusive deal with Apple, and of course it wouldn't have been in Apple's best interest if
every phone could make and receive video calls... I mean, what would be so special about FaceTime then? Nothing...
Finally, today, AT&T
still hasn't implemented video calling. Why? Who knows... They'll probably spin the whole "spectrum shortage" spiel as an excuse for not implementing a standard which has been available to the rest of the world for nearly a decade...
Then again, maybe they'll roll out this feature once they've rolled out LTE--wait a second... Chuck Testa is calling...
