Back in September 2009, Facebook announced a new service called Facebook Lite which was a slimmed down service meant for those individuals that wanted to access the world’s biggest social networking site but had a low bandwidth or poor network connection.

Along the same lines as that, Facebook has announced today another low bandwidth version of their service in Facebook Zero. What sounds more like a zero calorie diet drink (think Coke Zero), Facebook Zero is a bare bones, text only version of their popular website that is intended for mobile users.

The new service that is expected to launch “in the coming weeks” will reduce bandwidth usage by omitting “data intensive applications like photos.” Facebook Zero should be quite popular amongst mobile operators who are looking to free bandwidth on their overtaxed mobile networks.

To give you an idea of just how popular Facebook is, a recent UK study revealed that Facebook accounts for about 50% of a mobile users time while online.

Via: BBC, Gadgetsteria