FaceTime international calls

Hello! I have been using FaceTime for years to call my kids internationally and recently was hit with a whopping $300 charge on my Sprint Bill. They were completely unhelpful. On the phone for 2 hours and 4 representatives, but nothing. I think I have figured it out. When making a call to an international number you must make sure that you are connected to wifi. If you use your carriers 4G network you are hosed. Even though I have unlimited data they slapped on carrier charges. I feel like they are double dipping in a way, because when I stream through 4 or 5G I don't get charged (free data). Not a super techy person, but it strikes me that they should be honoring the same policy on FaceTime calls because essentially it uses data, not phone. They are super frustrating to deal with and I have come to that conclusion on my own. They told me everything from I overused my data (it's unlimited) to I needed to turn off long distance services. Unfortunately my office has terrible wifi, and if I leave it on it makes my phone run slow. So I am going to see what happens when I make a call on wifi...Be careful!

FaceTime uses Wi-Fi or cellular data, period.

For some carriers, an International SMS is send to Apple server for connection.

Supported carriers waived the SMS charges. Talk to your carrier about this.

Hello Sadarrion,

Provided it goes over VoIP (Which FaceTime *does*) then you should not receive international call charges as the FaceTime calls are being processed through Apple's servers, nothing to do with the carriers. However, because you are doing the call not over WiFi, keep in mind that yes you will be charged for the data and it is not impossible for the carriers to charge extra for making VoIP calls - however this is unheard of and would most likely not be the case. Feel free to contact both your carriers for a 100% answer but you should rest assured knowing that this is most likely not the case and you are free to call 🙂

Thanks,

James 🙂