Not long ago Google introduced audio/video chat into their Talk app (version 1.3) for Android — but only on Gingerbread 2.3.4. This brought the same voice and video chat capabilities to the Nexus S as you can get in the desktop version of Google Talk.

Back then I predicted that this could be the beginning of the end for “traditional” cellular voice plans. Why would you need a voice plan if you could video chat with anyone in your contact list? Of course the recipient would also need Google Talk, and they’d have to be in front of their computer (or have a 2.3.4 powered smartphone) to answer your call, but the writing, it seemed, was on the wall.

Is that what T-Mobile feared? Is that the reason behind their recent blocking of audio/video chat over cellular data plans?

I should clarify.

Only smartphones have been blocked, tablets such as the GSlate reportedly can still use audio/video chat over 3G/4G.

Is T-Mobile afraid they’ll be reduced to nothing more than a data provider? Are they looking out for our best interest by reducing the likelihood that we’ll go over our data limits? Or was this an honest mistake that T-Mobile is “working on” fixing? Let us know what you think in the comments!

Source: Android and Me