Telcos squeezed as consumers go mad for mobile Web

Consumers' increasing love of using services like Facebook and YouTube on their smartphones is leaving many telecoms carriers sidelined while bearing the costs of ever-growing demands on their networks.

As users lap up mobile Internet services, the Web giants are strengthening their relationships with consumers, while the telcos are finding their connections with customers reduced to a monthly bill and an occasional handset upgrade. More than half of Facebook's users already access the social network from a mobile device, Facebook said in its recent filing for a long-awaited initial public offering -- and that proportion is expected to keep growing. The operators complain that the Web giants are hitching a free ride on the networks in which they are investing billions, while free services like Facebook Messenger are eating into the SMS text revenues on which they have long depended.