The feature has been silently pushed to users in the country

Mar 18, 2014 07:41 GMT  ·  By

Owners of Android-based devices in India who are also using the Facebook Messenger can now enjoy a great new feature in the application, in the form of voice calling.

Facebook did not announce the rollout of this feature to India as of now, but users are already seeing it as available in the mobile client, AndroidOS notes.

For those out of the loop, we should note that the feature was first announced back in February 2013, but that it was restricted to only a few countries out there.

To be more precise, only owners of iOS devices in Canada and the US were able to take advantage of it at that time. However, the capability was pushed to Android users in Canada one month later, and it has been slowly arriving in other countries as well since then, it seems.

With voice calling available in Facebook Messenger, users are provided with the possibility to call their friends for free, something that other similar services out here also offer.

In fact, it appears that more and more messaging applications available on Android and other mobile operating systems are delivering free calling capabilities, which could turn carrier plans obsolete in the not too distant future.

Yesterday, LINE announced that they were enabling Android users in eight countries to call landlines and mobile phones at cheap rates, something that Skype has been providing for a long time. BBM is offering voice calling as well, the same as WhatsApp and others (though only between the app’s users).

What we’re wondering is whether the availability of free voice calling in Facebook Messenger in more countries might have something to do with the fact that Facebook bough WhatsApp several weeks back, given that the latter was also preparing the deployment of this feature later this year.

In the meantime, you might want to know that making a call in the Messenger is as straightforward as it can be at the moment, considering that the application is focused on messaging.

To access the capability, simply open a message thread with a friend, hit the Android menu button, and then select Free Call. However, you should know that the option won’t be available when the friend can’t be called.

When in a call, you’ll also have the option to commute to the phone’s speaker. At the end of the call, you can offer feedback on the quality of audio (Fonearena notes that users will receive a very good experience with it if they use a Wi-Fi connection or if they have good network coverage).

Soon, Facebook might provide some specific details on its plans for voice calling in Facebook Messenger, and we wouldn't be surprised if they announced it for even more markets out there, so stay tuned to learn the news.