“Facebook said it could team up with mobile operators on payments, in an offer that would give them back part of the revenue and influence they have lost in recent years to Apple and Google,” Georgina Prodhan reports for Reuters.
“Mobile operators have been increasingly sidelined by internet companies, which often appeal directly to consumers, hog network capacity with bandwidth-hungry services like YouTube, and compete with the telcos’ own products,” Prodhan reports. “‘Facebook and mobile were made for each other,’ chief technology officer Bret Taylor said on Monday, echoing then-Google chief executive Eric Schmidt’s first overtures to the industry at the Barcelona event two years ago.”
Prodhan reports, “Taylor said operators could play a vital role in billing for Facebook’s services, potentially putting the 30 percent tolls that Apple and Google collect in their app stores in the hands of the operators instead. The billing alliance includes eight major carriers such as Spanish group Telefonica, U.S. operator AT&T and Japanese company Softbank.”
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