An independent U.N. panel called Monday for much greater cooperation to bring digital technology to roughly half the world’s people, and a senior Google executive said mobile phones with internet access are being created to sell for about $20 that can help make this possible.
Google Vice President Vinton Cerf said at a news conference after the panel’s report was officially launched that “it’s going to cost a lot of money” to end the digital divide.
But without driving down costs of phones and communications, he said, “we won’t succeed in getting the other 4.5 billion, or 3.5 billion, people online.”
