With more than half of the world’s population now becoming mobile telephone subscribers the digital divide in such phones has been largely bridged, but there remains a widening risk of an Internet broadband divide, the head of the United Nations agency for telecommunication warned today.

Speaking at the Global Forum on Access and Connectivity, which is meeting today and tomorrow in Kuala Lumpur, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré said a “complicity” between the private sector and the government was essential to increase the availability of information and communication technologies (ICT).