Google and Allies Launch Universal Internet Access Group with a Policy Focus

Internet access and affordability remains a big problem, not only in the U.S. but especially across the world. In some developing countries - comprising billions of people - there remains to be very practical, widespread internet access at all.

That's why Google is forming a new coalition to advocate for more affordable internet across the world. Called the Alliance for Affordable Internet, Google has partnered with U.S. and U.K. Government agencies and nonprofits, along with 30 other members including big technology companies, to spread broadband across the globe.

A Focus on Policy

The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) has an ultimate goal much like the goal of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's Internet.org, to get internet services to those who don't have it yet (it doesn't hurt these companies to open new markets either). But A4AI goes about it a different way than Zuckerberg's technical, software efficiency and incentivizing services-centered approach.

Google plans on brining down Internet costs through policy change. According to the Google Public Policy blog post announcing the plan, Google wants "to reach the UN Broadband commission target of entry-level broadband access priced at less than 5 percent of monthly income worldwide," by facilitating policy changes in poor countries that can "bolster new access technologies and initiatives and make the Internet more affordable to people worldwide."

According to the figures Google sites from the UN International Telecommunication Union, households in the developing world pay about 30 percent of their monthly income for a fixed connection. To bring that number down, Google and the A4AI are working on several different projects to begin with:

• Publishing a set of policy and regulatory best practices
• Working directly with governments, with plans to engage with 10+ countries by the end of 2015
• Releasing the first edition of an annual affordability report

The best practices pamphlet is already available and includes advice including technical recommendations - effective spectrum management and using unlicensed spectrum to encourage innovation - and broader policy advice, like eliminating luxury taxes and setting up an independent regulatory agency to license network operators and police anti-competitive behavior.

The A4AI is comprised of Google, the non-profit Omidyar Network, the U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S.AID) and its U.K. counterpart. Facebook has joined as a member of this group as well, along with Ericsson, and Microsoft, Yahoo, Intel, Sisco, Alcatel-Lucent, the U.S. State Department, and carriers MainOne (Africa) and Digicel (Carribean). Foundations like the Center for Internet and Society, the Ford Foundation, along with the World Wide Web Foundation (which initiated the A4AI) are also members.

This isn't the only Google initiative to bridge the digital divide and expand anemic internet markets across the world.

Google's Other(worldy) Initiative

In the summer, Google officially started tests of the decidedly more futuristic Project Loon, an internet access initiative that uses high-altitude balloons, which broadcast internet signals comparable to 3G speeds to remote areas and places with undeveloped IT infrastructure.

The superpressure balloons are about 50 feet in diameter and 40 feet tall when fully inflated, and are fitted with radio antennas, a flight computer, solar panels, and an altitude control system. They are designed to float up to 12 miles above the Earth's surface for about 100 days, delivering internet access to 25-mile diameter areas on the ground below.