Mobile World Congress 2015: As mobile companies seek to boost the reach of the smartphone to every person on the continent, the GSM Association (GSMA) is working on a way of securing digital identities.
Jon Fredrik Baksaas, GSMA chairman and CEO of Telenor, speaking during the keynote address at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, this morning said almost four billion people will connect to the Internet by 2020.
Baksaas noted there are almost 3.7 billion unique subscribers globally now, of which 2.2 billion are online and "the mobile has become everything". Yet, he said, "the job is not done" as there is much to do to get the rest of the world connected to a mobile network, most of whom live in reach of a signal.
Telefonica CEO C'esar Alierta commented that digital inclusion has the ability to improve productivity and add to global growth, as the digital economy could be as big as that of the US's within the next few years.
Alierta noted that, by 2020, 90% off all people older than six will have a phone, and 90% of people will connect via broadband.
The question, according to Baksaas, is how the rest of the world is moved to the "next level" of connectivity while keeping users secure and data private. He said work is ongoing to solve the question of how to develop and maintain digital identities.
Baksaas said the typical consumer has 26 user names and five online passwords. "The phone and SIM stands out as a platform to handle identities."
The industry, through handsets and SIM cards, has the potential to offer a single solution to keep passwords safe. He noted the GSMA aims to take this global, and already has 16 operators signed up right now. "We hope the ketchup will come out of the bottle throughout 2015."
However, Baksaas believes there needs to be a single standard and interoperability before the system can achieve widespread acceptance. He added the association expects to sign up a billion users in the next year if it is successful.
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