Earlier this week, online news sites started reporting the apparent blocking of Google’s Google+ Hangout video-chat application on Android over AT&T’s cellular network [SlashGear, Time, ArsTechnica].
Several of the articles noted the relationship to an earlier controversy concerning AT&T and Apple’s FaceTime application. Our Mobile Broadband Working Group at the FCC’s Open Internet Advisory Committee released an case study on the AT&T’s handling of FaceTime in January of this year. Our report may help inform the new debate on the handling of the Google Hangout video app on cellular networks.
Addendum (5/21/2013): AT&T announces support for FaceTime over cellular under all pricing plans over LTE by the end of the year [MacObserver, The Register].
It would be a lot easier to be sympathetic to Google’s point of view if they hadn’t just announced that they were blocking third party XMPP federation in favor of a proprietary chat protocol.