Vodafone Egypt Restores FaceTime on iPhone 4

Vodafone Egypt has restored FaceTime services for iPhone 4 sold by the company (model numbers MC605AB and MC603AB). FaceTime was reactivated by a Carrier Update (version 10.1 for Vodafone Egypt).

This change was first reported by iPhoneIslam then I saw twitter messages by @houssini and @SadekHM.

It was then confirmed by Vodafone Egypt’s official twitter account:

Mohammed Lubbad checked the RegionFeatures regional restrictions file and noticed that Apple didn’t change it in iOS 4.3 GM. However Vodafone’s Carrier Update file included a boolean key named AllowsVoIP and it’s set to “on”.

AllowsVoIP overwrites NOVOIP found in RegionFeatures file. So it is possible to enable FaceTime on iPhone 4 units sold by Mobily and STC.

It also means that it’s possible for a carrier to release a settings file with AllowsVoIP set to off and disable FaceTime on any iPhone 4 on their network.

These questions remain: When will FaceTime be enabled on iPhone 4 phones sold in Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar? What about iPod touch? Will the missing countries be added to FaceTime for Mac? What about the upcoming iPad 2? These devices can’t be fixed with a carrier settings update.

This image compares the old and new Vodafone Egypt Carrier Settings files:

You can find the author of this post on twitter: @khaled.

Arabic version of this post on SaudiMac Arabic Edition.

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