Globe Telecom to Offer Free Facebook Access for its 36 Million Subscribers

MANILA, Philippines, Oct. 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Setting another milestone in Philippine telecommunications, Globe Telecom is giving the telco's over 36 million subscribers free access to Facebook on mobile phones for an initial period of three (3) months. Globe worked closely with Facebook to enable customer experience innovations for the best free Facebook offer yet.

Available to all Globe Telecom customers using feature phones and smartphones* and accessing either through the mobile site of Facebook or the Facebook app, users can post, like, comment, chat, add friends, upload photos, share posts, and more on Facebook without the need for Wi-Fi.

Aside from offering Facebook at zero data charges, the collaboration between the two global companies has also paved the way for subscribers to enjoy first-of-its-kind customer experience innovations.

Working with Silicon Valley-based Facebook engineers, Globe has put together innovations that cover key milestones in the customer experience journey such as availability of access on feature phones and smartphones across all Facebook mobile platforms whether via the Facebook app or Facebook's mobile site m.facebook.com; no billshock as customers will be notified if they will incur data charges once a link that leads out of Facebook is clicked; and one-click registration to the data plan of choice to continue browsing without having to leave the site. Recommended data plans consider a subscriber's available prepaid balance and/or megabytes (MB) balance of existing data plan.

Moreover, customers with not enough prepaid load can "loan" a 10MB data plan for only US$0.23 cents, which will be deducted on their succeeding top-up so they can fully explore content outside Facebook, making the experience seamless and worry-free.

"Once again, Globe has proven that it is the mobile data service provider of choice by industry and technology leaders around the world with this breakthrough partnership with Facebook to give our 36 million subscribers uninterrupted, seamless, and worry-free Free Facebook experience. This is collaboration at its peak, which has resulted in the best and most innovative Free Facebook experience yet," said Peter Bithos, Senior Advisor for Consumer Business at Globe Telecom.

Bithos added, "Over the past months, the engineering, business development and marketing teams at both Globe and Facebook have worked together to plan and design the customer experience from scratch -- which includes making the service available across all Facebook mobile platforms, rolling out a system that alerts users once they are about to click a link that will incur them data charges, paving the way for subscribers to easily subscribe to a data plan without having to leave Facebook, and allowing data access lending for subscribers who don't have enough prepaid load to continue browsing links outside Facebook. This service testifies how Globe is transforming itself beyond just an access carrier. Globe is striving to be a leading digital brand catering to the needs of digital Filipinos who need to be connected to their social circles around the world."

"Facebook's mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected," said Chris Daniels, vice president of partnerships at Facebook. "Globe understands the opportunities giving people access to the Internet brings and we're thrilled to be working with them to give Globe subscribers access to Facebook without data charges across our apps and mobile website."

There are 1.15 billion users of Facebook around the world as of June 2013, according to the social networking site's latest disclosures.

*Except BlackBerry. Free Facebook will soon be available to Nokia Xpress and Opera Mini users

SOURCE Globe Corporate Communications Team