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Ok. So now I think I have cracked this and really understand what is going on. As was highly publicized Facetime is not available on Middle East phones. I have a UK unlocked iPhone 4 and had Facetime running on it for a while, but recently lost that functionality. This drove me to try to find out exactly what is going on and how Facetime is being blocked or allowed: 1. Phones acquired from the Middle East operators have a specific model number that looses full Facetime functionality when upgraded to 4.1. Basically the "regions" file contains a NOVOIP key that kills Facetime and makes the Facetime toggle switch in Phone Settings disappear. That's the easy part :-) 2. Facetime activates on the phone by sending an SMS to a UK number. Simply put, every time you try to activate Facetime the phone will send a background message to a UK number that includes things like IMEI, Mac address etc. Apple will respond back with an acknowledgement that confirms activation and associates