ABUJA, Nigeria, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee has announced a cross-industry coalition that wants to bring cheaper Internet to the developing world.
Berners-Lee introduced the Alliance for Affordable Internet in Abuja, Nigeria, Monday and said it aims to drive down global Internet prices and campaign against anti-competitive pricing.
"The majority of the world's people are still not online, usually because they can't afford to be," he said. "In Mozambique, for example, a recent study showed that using just 1GB of data can cost well over two months' wages for the average citizen."
The coalition includes both public and private organizations, including Google, Facebook, Intel, Microsoft, Cisco and Britain's Department for International Development, The Guardian reported.
Berners-Lee said the coalition has the goal of helping Internet access prices fall to below the U.N. Broadband Commission's target of 5 percent of monthly income worldwide.
"The result of high prices is a widening digital divide that slows progress in vital areas such as health, education and science," he said. "With the advent of affordable smartphones, new undersea cables and innovations in wireless spectrum usage, there is simply no good reason for the digital divide to continue."
Justine Greening, Britain's secretary of state for international development, agreed.
"Over the last twenty years the web has changed our own society so much that everyday life seems unimaginable without it," she said. "Internet access has been a driver of economic growth. It puts power in the hands of people and opens up societies."
