FaceTime on iPhone 4 : du and Etisalat

[Badih]

Hi everyone,

Just wanna share my experience. I have bought a factory unlocked in France through the Apple Store.

Im not yet back to the UAE but here is the point:

- facetime is not working with Etisalat micro-sim
- when you turn "Facetime" ON in "Settings" -> "Phone", you only have "waiting for activation"
- and of course, no possibility to call or receive facetime calls

Once I insert an Orange sim-card in the iPhone 4, no problem, a few seconds after, facetime is enabled and, daimmnn, it's working so good!

FaceTime is not as "easy" as Steve Jobs want us to think. The point is an SMS is automatically sent without your permission in total secret and another one is back from server with IP address and many others information.

So for sure, the problem comes from Etisalat which have to take into account this new amazing feature. But to my mind, Apple is also responsible cause they are selling factory unlocked phones to use with any sim, together with FaceTime. For me, it was the 2 main reasons why I bought it (with new Camera HD).

So, here we are for the moment, I have sent an email to Etisalat to ask them to activate it, i'll keep updating this post as soon as I have some news.

Oh yes, one more thing, if you are still hesitating, just buy it, even without FaceTime, it's incredible. With Facetime, it become just magical.

Take Care,

Badih

[Magnus]

Afaik, several people on Twitter have talked about using FaceTime in UAE. Not sure if it was on du or Etisalat, but don't think all of them were on du.

[justinjoy16]

even i hav the same problem. it still says waiting for activation. i use an etisalat sim but i dont thinks du is providing micro sims. i hav an AT&T sim but its not an active one dont noe if it will work or not.

[Magnus]

even i hav the same problem. it still says waiting for activation. i use an etisalat sim but i dont thinks du is providing micro sims. i hav an AT&T sim but its not an active one dont noe if it will work or not.

Du has MicroSIMs afaik.

[justinjoy16]

Magnus they have microsims only for data not for voice... but after facetime is activated on my device i trimmed down my du sim to fit and it started working i think its a problem with etisalat.

[MohamadAkkad]

I prefer to wait for the iPhone 4 to be official in UAE, at least I will be sure it will work.

[justinjoy16]

Just made my first FaceTime call with apple on their FaceTime number. It works and great audio and video quality also. I used a 512 Kbps connection from Etisalat.

[Badih]

hey guys thx for your return, I just have confirmation that nobody with Etisalat simcard made any FaceTime call...

[justinjoy16]

hmm.. even i was not able to make facetime call... but now i can... so u planning to switch to du...?? if so just tell me we can try out facetime

[Badih]

unfortunatly I can not switch to DU like this... my phone number is on my hundreds business cards and... I like Etisalat, or maybe I am just used to now so... anyway, I hope it will work soon. Etisalat sent me an email today. I sent them a screenshot of my iPhone showing the message "waiting for activation". They answered that I had to put my micro-sim card into the iPhone, as "Orange" was shown on top! I just explain to them that when you are abroad, "Etisalat" never appears on your iPhone as you are out of the UAE... that's the principle of... roaming... you know this little thing you took me 2000 AED from me to make it possible ;-)... sometimes they are just so funny...