On planet Facebook there are no telecom networks

Last week, when Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook was going to announce something ‘awesome’, pretty much the entire tech blogosphere guessed it would be the Skype video calling integration with Facebook. It was.
Facebook’s 750m users will soon be able to video chat to their friends, but only on a one-to-one basis. Group chats are not a feature yet, unlike the Hangout feature on Google+.
Skype executives have also confirmed that Skype will bring PSTN* voice calling to Facebook in the near future.
For now, the Skype-Facebook integration is very simple, even compared to Skype’s ‘regular’ PC service. There’s a video icon in Facebook’s chat window and if a user hasn’t activated the Skype app it can be downloaded in 30 seconds. Simplicity at its best.
Tony Bates, the chief executive of Skype, has confirmed that Skype will add paid services in the near future where people can call landlines and mobiles for a low cost using their Facebook Skype app. This will revolutionise the telecoms sector. As smart phones become ubiquitous, it wouldn’t make sense for Facebook users not to use the Skype app on their phones. This is a further blow to the telecoms networks.
It is also likely that Facebook will make its own currency (‘Facebook Credits’) mandatory for Skype paid services. Last week Facebook made the use of Facebook Credits mandatory for all its app developers. Facebook takes a 30% cut of all Facebook Credit transactions with 70% going to the developer.
Welcome to planet Facebook.

* The public switched telephone network (PSTN) is the network of the world’s public circuit-switched telephone networks. It consists of telephone lines, fiberoptic cables, microwave transmission links, cellular networks, communications satellites, and undersea telephone cables all inter-connected by switching centers which allows any telephone in the world to communicate with any other. Originally a network of fixed-line analog telephone systems, the PSTN is now almost entirely digital in its core and includes mobile as well as fixed telephones. [Wikipedia]