Technology behind using Twitter,Facebook without Internet

Facebook, Twitter without Internet ? How its possible ?

You may be aware of News that Social networking giant Facebook along with India's Telecom leader AIRTEL to launch Facebook without Internet feature for all AIRTEL Customers

How is it possible to use Facebook or Twitter without Internet ?

Technology  Used : USSD  

USSD ? which means Unstructured Supplementary Service Data , this is the technology behind accessing Social Media without internet.

Its a new or emerging Technology you may ask ? Answer is simply No. You are using it already everyday in your mobile phone.

When you check your balance by Typing *123# (If you are AIRTEL Customer) you will get the reply in text format how much balance you have with expiry date etc etc.

What I said above is one example of USSD we are using daily .

 You want some more example ?

• When you disconnect a call, you will shown the charges of last call spoken
• Transferring fund from one sim card to another.
• Mobile money service like AIRTEL Money

 I hope you are familiar with where we are using USSD

Simply USSD is a protocol to communicate between service provider and customer. The message usually starts with * , followed by numbers and ends with # 

E.g *123#

Unlike SMS they are very fast and responsive. Now Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia are started using USSD for providing service.

By using USSD even feature and basic phone model owners can access Facebook and Twitter since these companies thought they can reach wide range of customers if they provide service to feature and basic phones.

You have Nokia 1100 Go ahead, you also now update your status in Facebook from 1100 also.

 

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About Unknown

I am Vicky AV, Engineer, Pro Blogger & Twitterati.
I created this blog to post some interesting technical stuff that I feel everyone should know. I hope you find these interesting too. Follow me on Twitter