It's hard to disagree with these figures and clearly the swiss-army like convergent smartphone's that have built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, MP3, video, camera, cellular, GPS, gaming device,etc will come out on top due to economy of scale that will bring the costs tumbling down (and not just because of subsidised phone contracts).
However I can see challenges with what we presently consider to be a 'phone' as necessarily the device for schools unless there are clear mechanisms to deal with payment for use of cellular networks. If a pupil is using a cellular connection for educational work then who pays the phone bill? I doubt schools or parents would want to see large and variable phone bills each month. I almost get a cardiac arrest each time my mobile phone bill arrives!
There are also some technical challenges with making connections to the net seamless with a device on the move as a pupil moves from WiFi connection to WiFi connection (perhaps school and home) without having to fiddle with techie control panels and proxy settings plus also having the device make the 'best decision' with regards to what type of connection to use without user intervention.
I expect (hope) that this will become a mute point when
WiMAX arrives and pupils could potentially have high speed net access upto 70 miles from the school but in the meantime I think it's a thorny issue.
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Technology matters 
