Airtel gives free access to Facebook

Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Monday said that its subscribers can access social networking site Facebook on their mobiles free of cost for two months till August 31.

Airtel has entered into a partnership with Facebook to enable its 130 million subscribers to log on to Facebook's full mobile site at no data cost through their mobile, Airtel said in a statement.

The offer will be available for two months till August 31. Facebook's mobile site will be initially available in English and Hindi, with five other languages--Punjabi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam--to follow by July 15, 2010.

"Our mobile customers will also be the first in the world to enjoy Facebook on their Airtel mobile in five vernacular languages," Bharti Airtel Chief Marketing Officer- Mobile Services Shireesh Joshi said.

Facebook is a social networking website through which users can add people as friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.

Henri Moissinac, Head of Mobile Business, Facebook said that more than 100 million Facebook users around the world access the site through their mobile devices.

The existing mobile internet customers on Airtel can immediately avail the service while customers who are accessing the mobile internet for the first time need to SMS FACEBOOK to 54321 to avail the offer.