AT&T DSL & Facetime

[bgeman]

Hello all from Kansas
After months of being nagged :-( Santa got the wifie an iPad2. She loves the facetime app while at our
house to call her out of state contacts. I had the misconception that if she had an iPhone 5s she would be able
to take her ipad & her iphone to her mothers house (no internet) she would be able to used her iphone to connect and her ipad for a larger screen pic. I wuz wrong! :-(
So, if'n I want to get AT&T DSL at her mothers, what would be the minimum speed that would handle facetime?
I hope this makes sense! LOL!

 

[twerppoet]

It should be possible to use the iPhone and iPad as you describe, if the following conditions are met.

1. Her iPhone's cellular plan includes the tethering (hotspot) feature. This is enabled by the carrier and will not appear in Settings otherwise.

2. Her mother's place is in range of 3G, 4G, or better yet LTE service. This is shown at the top left of the phone's screen, next to the carrier's name.

3. You go to Settings > Cellular, find the FaceTime app, and make sure it is enabled for cellular data.


To actually use it, if all conditions are met, you go into settings on the iPhone and turn on the hotspot. Be sure to note the name of the hotspot and password. Give it a bit, then go to the Wi-Fi settings on the iPad and look for the hotspot's name. Be patient, it can take a minute or two to show up, in my experience. Joint it just like you would any other wi-fi network, and FaceTime to your heart's content.

Hold in mind you can tear through your data plan pretty fast using this feature. Keep an eye on your usage.



As for your actual question, an internet connection with as little as 1Mbps would probably work, if absolutely nothing else is using the connection, and you're willing to settle for iffy video. Audio only would probably work fine. 3 Mbps should provide a decent connection most of the time. Faster, is of course, better.

My mother FaceTimes once a week with my sister (so she can see her granddaughter). Speed tests of her bandwidth are usually between 1.5 and 3 Mbps. Always get a bit more bandwidth, as advertised by the ISP, than you think you need. Mostly because of the small type which tends to say "typical, average, and not liable".

It's not always less than advertised, but it's much nicer to be pleasantly surprised than not.

 

[bgeman]

Thank You very much!

 

[twerppoet]

You're welcome.