AXIS [Indonesia] to Offer Low Cost Viber-only Data Packages

 
In an interview to the iPAD edition of Calcalist [here, Hebrew], founder and CEO of Viber, Talmon Marco, provided the magazine with more details about the VoIP provider recent agreement with AXIS (see also  AXIS and Viber agree on co-marketing partnership" - here).

"Last month, in Indonesia, Viber launched its first partnership with a cellular operator .. according to the agreement with AXIS, it will sell data plans allowing only the use of Viber .. it's a win-win play as most on the population does not have a cellular data plan, and Axis can offer a cheaper plan".

Facebook recently announced that Axis is one of 18 MNOs with which it has partnership "to provide free or discounted data access to Facebook messaging for their subscribers" (see "Facebook Offers Free Messaging Through 18 MNOs"- here).

All in the spirit of Net Neutrality, of course.

Facebook Offers Free Messaging Through 18 MNOs

While offering free Wikipedia ("Wikipedia Zero" - see "VimpelCom - Free Access to Wikipedia" - here) maybe considered a true innocent move with real educational intentions, the new step by Facebook is different, and may call for more countries to consider their Net Neutrality rules.

Facebook announced in a blog post a "partnerships with mobile operators to provide free or discounted data access to Facebook messaging for their subscribers. Through this promotion, free or discounted data access will be available in the coming months on Messenger for Android, Messenger for iOS and Facebook for Every Phone, which is now optimized for chat.

"This promotion will be available from more than 18 operators in 14 countries. Operators committed to special pricing for Facebook messaging include TMN in Portugal, Three in Ireland, Airtel and Reliance in India, Vivacom in Bulgaria, Backcell in Azerbaydzhan, Indosat, Smartfren, AXIS and XL Axiata in Indonesia, SMART in Philippines, DiGi in Malaysia, DTAC in Thailand, Viva in Bahrain, STC in Saudi Arabia, Oi in Brazil, Etisalat in Egypt, and Tre in Italy".

See "Discounting Data Access to Messaging on Mobile" - here.