Verizon 3G FaceTime Only on Tiered Data?

We noted earlier that it seemed that AT&T Wireless' move toward data throttling for its highest 5 percent of end users could, in fact, act to push some of those grandfathered unlimited users to data tiers. Here's another move that could do so, if true.

The new report concerns Apple's FaceTime video calling service. Reportedly, despite its slower version of 3G (vs. AT&T's), the FaceTime experience on Verizon's 3G network appears to be just fine, but we may not see it anyway. Apple wants to maximize the number of people who can have access to 3G FaceTime, but Verizon wants only tiered data plans to have access.

  It's not a new sticking point for some time. It was reported in mid-June that Apple and Verizon were at odds over 3G FaceTime.

The reasoning seems to be similar to AT&T's decision to throttle only unlimited data plans. It could "encourage" those on legacy unlimited data plans to move to tiered data, if they want to use FaceTime. And after all, if they used a lot of data because of FaceTime, that's what those overage fees are for, right?

It's already known that there are flags in iOS 5 that could let Apple disable FaceTime 3G support for specific carriers. Remember how iOS 4 tethering support was disabled on AT&T for so long? It's just another reason to jailbreak.