Verizon iPhone won’t get FaceTime 3G support

It’s one of the biggest “wished-for” features for current iPhone owners, and it looks like Verizon customers won’t get a break either.

“FaceTime requires Wi-Fi. Same as on iPhone 4 on AT&T today,” said Apple spokesperson Natalie Kerris in a San Jose Mercury News story.

Since the introduction of the iPhone 4 last year, one of the most popular and talked-about features is the FaceTime application, which makes video chatting with other iPhone users an easy, seamless, and fun experience. However, both users must be connected to Wi-Fi since a mobile 3G network isn’t powerful enough to run dual live video streams with enough fidelity.

That has led to one of the biggest features that Sprint likes to tote with its 4G network – the ability to place video calls on a similar app, via the phone’s wireless network. T-Mobile is now boasting the same with its 4G interface. However, neither AT&T nor Verizon has a fully operational 4G network yet, as there are no 4G phones running on either provider. That will change in the next several months, though.

We were hoping Apple would have been working to optimize FaceTime so the Verizon iPhone could run it over 3G, but it looks like that’s just too monumental of a task.

Oh well…