Alliance for Affordable Internet

The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) is an initiative to make the Internet more affordable to people around the world. The World Wide Web Foundation serves as the Secretariat, and major members of coalition include Google, the Omidyar Network, the Department for International Development, USAID, Facebook, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, UN Women and many others from the public, private and civil society sectors.^[1][2]

A4AI was briefly discussed in relation to Internet.org, a Facebook-led initiative for Internet accessibility, by David Talbot in an article for Technology Review.^[9]

The A4AI has also coined the term "affordability threshold" in its "1 for 2 target". It considers the affordability threshold to be at 1GB of mobile broadband data priced at 2% or less of average monthly income.^[10][11] The UN Broadband Commission has adopted the “1 for 2” target as the new standard for affordable internet.^[12]

Michael Gurstein wrote a critical article about A4AI in which he raised concern that the organisation was more about encouraging Less Developed Countries (LDCs) to adopt neoliberal policies than actually getting "affordable access". Quoting their documentation, he says that they advocate a set of "guiding principles" for adoption as policy and regulatory practice by the LDCs. These, he argues, all rest on neoliberal assumptions, rather than allowing them to be tested alongside other ways of looking at things. Whilst these guidelines include an evidence-based approach, Gurstein argues that if all the research is carried out on neoliberal assumptions the results will be highly pre-determined by the input principles. He raises concern that this approach will allow for private companies to exploit making developments in the more readily reliable markets of the urban environment, while extending such services to less viable rural markets will be left to inadequately funded public initiatives. He further points to the championing of the use of Universal Service Fund facilities (a structure promoted by the World Bank), which often attract million or even billion dollar budgets but where control is retained by private service providers and which often do not match local needs. This leads to his claim that a major priority for A4AI is that LDC governments adopt neoliberal policies as outlined in their guiding principles.^[13]

• Internet.org
• Project Loon
• O3b Networks