Orange launched unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) to allow mobile users on orange platform to access Facebook. Accordingly, Facebook will soon be available on any phone within Orange’s footprint across Africa.
USSD does not require much bandwidth and it allows feature phones, even those without Internet service or data plans, to access Facebook. Orange operates in 20 countries in Africa, with around 70 million subscribers. According to the latest stats by CCK between July to September 2011 Orange Kenya has 2,745,702 subscribers.
Through Orange service subscribers will be able to login on Facebook , search for friends, invite friends, accept or deny friend requests, update their status, and comment on or like status updates from their friends.
There will be four options per session (10 minutes to 20 minutes), daily, weekly, and monthly.
The service has been launched in Egypt and Ivory Coast will the next with the rest of regions to follow later