You have an Orange line and your phone lacks GPRS? Good news! Facebook will be in your reach in the coming months. Orange has announced its intentions to provide Facebook access through USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) in basic GSM phones. This is a major step to try and connect users with low end phones to enjoy the networking capabilities of Facebook.
Orange did this in Egypt with Mobinil with over 350,000 subscribers coming on board by the first month. This service will see Côte d'Ivoire flag off this month with more African countries following suit.
The service will let customers access Facebook by typing a special code to get into their accounts. Facebook has seen exponential usage by Africans with latest statistics putting African users of the social network at 37 million users, as of December 2011.
"Social networks such as Facebook have completely changed how people stay in contact with their family and friends, and it's important that our customers, regardless of the phone they have, are able to access and participate in these services," Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Orange Xavier Perret, said.
The service will let customers access Facebook by typing a special code to get into their accounts. Facebook has seen exponential usage by Africans with latest statistics putting African users of the social network at 37 million users, as of December 2011.
"Social networks such as Facebook have completely changed how people stay in contact with their family and friends, and it's important that our customers, regardless of the phone they have, are able to access and participate in these services," Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Orange Xavier Perret, said.
