Mobile phones to fuel Internet growth, Google web evangelist says

Google vice president and chief Internet evangelist Vinton G. Cerf has predicted that mobile phones, not personal computers, will fuel growth of the worldwide web as countries like India snap up millions of handsets monthly.

From 50 million in 1997, the number of people who have logged onto the Internet has exploded to nearly 1.1 billion, Cerf, who is considered one of the founding fathers of the Internet, said Tuesday.

Yet, the Internet only reaches a sixth of the world's population, Cerf told reporters during a visit to this southern city, known as India's Silicon Valley, where Google has a research and development facility.

"You will get those other 5.5 billion people only when affordability increases and the cost of communication goes down," said Cerf, 63, who joined Google in 2005. "The mobile phone has become an important factor in the Internet revolution."

The silver-bearded scientist, dressed in a three-piece suit for a presentation on the Internet, is hearing-impared and had to read the lips of reporters who asked him questions.

Cerf, a winner of the Alexander Graham Bell award, said one of the reasons he started working on the Internet project was to give the hearing impared an instant tool to communicate.

Worldwide there are 2.5 billion mobile-phone users, whose numbers are growing rapidly in developing countries led by China and India, the world's most populous countries, Cerf said in his presentation.

India, a country of 1.1 billion people, alone is adding seven million mobile-phone users a month, a powerful enough lure for British telecom giant Vodafone to pay 11.1 billion dollars for a controlling stake in local mobile firm Hutch-Essar this month.

Handset manufacturers and mobile-phone companies are offering an array of Internet-enabled features and services including payment and navigation systems while dropping charges under the pressure of growing competition that will bring many of the new subscribers to the Internet, Cerf said.

"There are an enormous number of applications available on mobiles," said Cerf, who's responsible for identifying new technologies and applications on the Internet for Google.

Google has rapidly expanded its research and service offices in the country at the cities of Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai besides Bangalore, but Cerf said he has been visiting India since the early 1990s to understand its tech scene.

The company wants to tap the talent of Indian engineers to innovate technologies and widen its range of services, said Cerf.

India is estimated to have 40 million people online, a meagre 3.5 percent of its vast population, he said, adding Google will focus on local languages, culture, content and delivery of new business models to widen the reach of the Internet.

Cerf was the co-designer with Robert Kahn of the basic architecture of the Internet.

In 2005, they both received the highest civilian honour bestowed in the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which recognized that their work on the software code used to transmit data across the Internet has put them "at the forefront of a digital revolution that has transformed global commerce, communication and entertainment."

The Internet has brought access to the world's information to users, introduced new business models, education services, ushered in a new advertising medium and enabled consumers to become producers, Cerf said.

It also has brought spam mail, computer viruses and worms, misinformation, fraud and social abuse, he conceded in his presentation.

"This is a mirror to the population that uses it," the scientist said.

But Cerf's interests aren't limited to the Internet. He enjoys fine wine, gourmet cooking and science fiction, said Prasad Ram, who heads Google's Indian research facility.