Data Prices Could See Reduction For Facebook Messenger App

Facebook have announced this week that it has been working with multiple mobile carriers around the globe in a deal that could see Facebook Messenger data costs greatly reduced, with users in some countries even seeing data costs disappear completely from their bills.

The deal is with 18 carriers in 14 different countries across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and South America, all of which are a nice mixture of growing and struggling markets for Facebook unlike the US which it already dominates in. While many of us may have mobile contracts that cause little concern for our overall data rates, this isn’t true in many other parts of the world where mobile data can be (and often is) a lot more expensive. This is also the case when travelling across countries, even with the reduced rates that we’ve seen throughout Europe.

The discounted or free data access (carrier and country dependent) for iOS and Android Facebook Messenger will be setup to tempt more users to the Facebook service, especially in countries where Facebook isn’t the leading platform, as global #1 doesn’t always translate to local #1.

This should go well with the integration of new features to Facebook’s messenger app that allows people to use the service, even in they are not signed up to the Facebook site and this will go a long way to pushing Facebook deeper into the world of mobile communications on a global level.

The new data plans are initially only setup to last around three months, but if they prove successful for both Facebook and the mobile networks you can expect the deal to last a good while longer.

Could this be the start of mobile communication becoming affordable for the whole population or is it just a scheme to push Facebook even more into our lives? The future will be the only answer and personally we welcome this at eTeknix as we are all about keeping in contact and this is a prime example of how it can be done.