9mobile has just launched a new 9mobile Free Whatsapp service that let’s their subscribers use the popular instant messaging services for free.

This is quite interesting I must say

Especially when I remember the amount of data whatsapp gulps from my subscription every month.

Almost 4GB every month probably because I have tons of contacts and clients I need to keep in touch with. I’d say the 9mobile free whatsapp offer is actually not bad.

But the question is this –

Is the 9mobile free whatsapp offer totally free?

Well the answer to that is No, it’s not. You would need to have another active data bundle before you can use the free whatsapp which means your data would be subtracted for every other thing you do apart from whatsapp usage.

How To Activate The 9mobile Free Whatsapp Service

If you are a 9mobile customer, you can simply subscribe using *200*3*1#

According to 9mobile, The WhatsApp offer is certainly a novel one as it allows their customers to put their data to other uses while they enjoy chatting and bonding with friends and loved ones on WhatsApp for free.

The offer also empowers customers to promote their businesses using WhatsApp as data which would have been used up on WhatsApp can now be used for other things with the free WhatsApp offer by 9mobile..

What do you think?

Normally when it comes to cheap data plans I always tell people that Nigeria is one of the countries with the cheapest data plans in the world and I haven’t been too far from the truth. Take a look at at this graph from Statista.

Countries With The Cheapest Data

Nigeria ranks 4th in the list of selected countries with the cheapest data plans.

While a gigabyte of data would set Italian smartphone users back $1.73, the same amount would cost $2.22 in Nigeria, $2.99 in France, $6.66 in the United Kingdom and $6.96 in Germany. Costs are even higher in North America where they average $12.02 in Canada and $12.38 in the United States.

So should we give our Network Providers some accolades for giving us the cheapest data plans in the world?

Nope. Definitely not worth a standing ovation especially if you check the fact that we have one of the slowest 4G speeds in the world.

Nigeria’s top 4G speed is placed between 9.5Mbps and 16.2Mbps, while Algeria’s slowest speed of 2.6Mbps is the worst in the world.

However here’s the plot twist, the country with the slowest 4G speed – Algeria’s top download speed of 16.4Mbps still beat the fastest speeds in Thailand (11.7Mbps), India (14.6Mbps) and Nigeria (16.2Mbps).

Now I feel they only deserve the accolades for constantly zapping our data. Nevertheless I feel ISP’s in Nigeria can definitely do better than this.

Cable.co.uk also revealed a more comprehensive list.