An initiative to bring internet access to the
"next five billion" people has been launched by
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
The social network has teamed up with Ericsson,
MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung,
among others, to lower the cost of mobile data.
The group said it wanted to help those in
developing countries to become part of the internet
community.
But one expert said those nations had "other
priorities" to deal with first.
Mr Zuckerberg said the goal was to make "internet
access available to those who cannot currently afford
it".
The group's statement said only 2.7billion people -
just over one-third of the world's population - had
access to the internet. Adoption was growing by less
than 9% a year, which was not fast enough.
Central to the group's plans is to be more "data
efficient" by researching ways to use less data to
load websites or load apps.
The statement said: "Potential projects include
developing data compression tools, enhancing
network capabilities to more efficiently handle data,
building systems to cache data efficiently and
creating frameworks for apps to reduce data usage."
Dr Michael Jennings, chair of African studies at Soas,
University of London, said he welcomed the firms'
efforts, but that priority must be given to other
pressing needs such as providing power to keep
devices up and running.
"It's something of a misnomer that the five billion
aren't connected," he told the BBC.
"Most people have made a call or used a mobile
phone, and the success of things like mobile money
service M-Pesa has shown just how many people are
using these things."
'Final frontier'
Tom Jackson, managing editor of African technology
blog HumanIPO, said interest in the area was
encouraging but that the pledge lacked important
specifics.
"In terms of being able to reach people, they've never
actually said how," he told the BBC.
"Last mile connectivity has been a problem that has
been battled in Africa for a long long time."
Earlier this month, analyst Gartner said smartphones
outsold "feature" phones for the first time, but many
people in the developing world still rely on slow
connections and very basic handsets.
Other companies are stepping up their interest in
this area, all eager to position themselves as a major
player in a market that analysts predict could be
highly lucrative as technology adoption increases.
"Africa is almost like the final frontier these days,"
said Mr Jackson, "the final place now where there's
penetration to be increased and there's money to be
made."
Google recently launched Project Loon - balloons that
will beam the internet from space. Fifty people are
currently testing the technology, which gives speeds
equivalent to 3G, in New Zealand.
If successful, it would be likely to provide a cheaper
alternative to satellite connections, currently one of
the main ways people in the developing world
connect to the web.

Source: m.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23779172