Why carriers should be more worried than Google about Facebook Home

Ellis Hamburger, writing at The Verge:

Mir­ror­ing its roll­out of free VoIP call­ing for iOS, Face­book has updat­ed its Mes­sen­ger app for Android to allow free call­ing for users in the US.

I think this is Facebook’s true sleight of hand: everyone is looking at Home and how they’re taking over the launcher and Android. Meanwhile they’re backdooring this VoIP technology that lets you call people using only wifi.

Facebook is asserting its primacy in the minds of millions of mobile users not only to dominate Android, but to put itself in a solid position to dominate carriers as well. Simple, user-friendly VoIP: one of the biggest and potentially most profound opportunities Google ever missed with Android.