Or more likely, the probability of a negative user experience is too high on AT&T's network.
To use a non-#attfail example: The little microwave ISP I use in a rural area gives me 10mbps, but they don't have enough backhaul to support that kind of bit rate in a sustained manner. If I start to watch a YouTube video at a better-than-awful bit encoding the first 10 seconds or so are great, then the routers notice my connection being a pig and fair-queueing or whatever mechanism they are using lowers my allowed bit rate to unwatchable levels.
I have a negative impression of YouTube watching because of my ISP. It is only because I have had experiences on other ISPs first that I don't associate this with YouTube or my browser.
Apple knows better than to let Facetime get a reputation as choppy, unreliable, or generally flakey, which it would on AT&T's network.
FTA, implied to be more of less AT&T's argument: "It didn’t make sense to build phones and offer features that carriers couldn’t support." Message: AT&T expects to solve user experience problems by removing or restricting features, and this is a bad thing.
Your post: "[T]he probability of a negative user experience is too high on AT&T's network ... Apple knows better than to let Facetime get a [bad] reputation[.]" Message: Apple solves user experience problems by restricting features, and this is a good thing.
Message: AT&T expects to solve user experience problems by removing or restricting features, and this is a bad thing.
This is of course in contrast to Apple's usual product design approach, which is to solve user experience problems by removing or restricting features?
I have a similar problem with YouTube, but on adsl and with full proper bandwidth available on other websites. YouTube itself throttles the client after the first few seconds, on the theory that many people will quit watching and it's a waste of bandwidth to read ahead too aggressively. But the feature seems flawed in my case, leading to stuttering on an uncontended connection. I often have better luck using a download manager and playing back the flv offline.
Either that, or my ISP is packet-sniffing and throttling video, which seems unlikely since e.g. BBC and ITV can stream fine.
To use a non-#attfail example: The little microwave ISP I use in a rural area gives me 10mbps, but they don't have enough backhaul to support that kind of bit rate in a sustained manner. If I start to watch a YouTube video at a better-than-awful bit encoding the first 10 seconds or so are great, then the routers notice my connection being a pig and fair-queueing or whatever mechanism they are using lowers my allowed bit rate to unwatchable levels.
I have a negative impression of YouTube watching because of my ISP. It is only because I have had experiences on other ISPs first that I don't associate this with YouTube or my browser.
Apple knows better than to let Facetime get a reputation as choppy, unreliable, or generally flakey, which it would on AT&T's network.