BANGALORE: While the rumors mills were spinning stories on WhatsApp getting a VoIP facility, Facebook has silently rolled out its voice calling functionality for its Facebook Messenger users in India. However the feature first introduced in 2013 was only made available for the U.S. and Canada users.
Voice calling feature is now available on both Android and iPhone devices and Facebook Messenger app now comes with a ‘Free Call’ option in the menu button. The service works better on 3G and Wi-Fi networks.
In the Facebook Messenger Android app, users can make free calls to the friends, by hitting the menu button, and choosing the ‘Free Call’ option. Whereas in the iPhone app, users can start voice call by choosing a friend from their contacts list and hitting the ‘I’ button on the upper right hand side which displays ‘Call’ option.
Users will not incur any charges for the voice calls, but they still have to pay for data consumed.
On Android phones, users receive calls like a normal phone call with the calling person’s profile image. On an iOS device, users get a push notification on their display. Free calls can only be done between the users who have already installed Facebook Messenger app on their devices. This service is not available for the PC users as yet, but they can opt for video call option anyways.
Facebook has recently launched its Messenger app Windows 8 Phone, but it does not support some of the features such as voice messaging and chat heads. The users may have to wait for an update featuring VoIP option.
News regarding the launching of new voice call feature has broken out soon after the Facebook’s acquisition of Messaging service WhatsApp. WhatsApp Messenger also announced the plan for launching free voice call service shortly.
It is believed that Facebook has launched its new feature in India last week, and it plans to extend the free calling service to other countries as well.
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