[martinkallstrom]

In my eyes this is Facebook's missed opportunity. Facebook is a sufficiently powerful brand to be able to negotiate exclusive deals with operators around the world to launch a VOIP phone relying on flat rate data only, replacing the address book with a subset of your social graph and SMS with Facebook Messaging. Such a move could have been very disruptive towards voice phone operators if paired with 170M desktop clients and the Skype protocol.

It's a strategy Facebook could adopt without Skype, but with the two brands in unison they could rule the market. I don't see Microsoft being able to do the same.

[togasystems]

I completely agree with you. Facebook could of became one of the largest telecommunication companies in the world overnight. Maybe they will get the chance to buy it off of MSFT much like how eBay sold it off. Probably not.

[limmeau]

Facebook already has deals in place with mobile operators. For example, Simyo, a German E-Plus reseller, allows its users free access to a special restricted Facebook site 0.facebook.com. They write it's good enough for status updates and messages.