Mobile Phones Are The Future Of The Internet

(From Arstechnica -- By Jacqui Cheng)

The future growth of the Internet lies in the hands of mobile phone users, not computers, according to GOOGLE Vice President VINTON CERF.

Speaking in Bangalore, India this morning, Cerf said to reporters that while the Internet population has exploded from 50 million to 1.1 billion since 1997, it still only reaches a sixth of the world's population.

The only way to reach the remaining 5.5 billion people on the planet will be to make it more affordable to access the Internet, according to Cerf.

Internet access via mobile phone has been slowly gaining momentum in developed countries -- over 50 percent of those surveyed toward the end of 2005 had used at least one data service on their phones.

However, such mobile access could be the key to quickly getting large populations in developing countries online due of the marginal cost of a mobile phone compared to a computer.

Mobile Phones Are The Future Of The Internet

Bill Smallfield, thanks for the post.

[All my friends have to have mobile internet access; more people in Russia, Brazil, and India use it than land-line; 40 million in the U.S. now use it; Google says it will over take homes eventually, but I still say I really don't need to access the Internet 24/7 from my iPhone -- especially if it's going to cost ANOTHER $80 a month to access. How is that making it more affordable?]