Google, Facebook seek to drive down cost of internet access, join Alliance for Affordable Internet

Tech titans Google and Facebook are just two of the boldface Silicon Valley names joining the fight for affordable internet access in the developing world. And to that end, the two companies -- in addition to a host of other notable tech outfits (i.e., Yahoo, Intel and Microsoft, amongst others), special interest groups and governments -- have formed the Alliance for Affordable Internet, a public / private coalition designed to drive down anticompetitive costs through policy change. The group, spearheaded by the World Wide Web Foundation, aims to begin advocating for cheaper access in a handful of locations within the developing world by year end, with an eventual target of reducing costs to "less than 5-percent of average monthly income" in up to 12 countries through 2015. Beyond advocacy, the group also intends to survey the global state of internet access with the release of an "Affordability Report," the first of which is due this December. You can read more about A4AI's policies and best practices right here.

Source: The Official Google.org Blog, A4AI (pdf)