Peanut power to reach the next billion cellphone users

By Stuart Corner
Sunday, 15 October 2006 10:18

Technology

The GSM Association (GSMA), Ericsson and multinational telecommunications group MTN experimenting with biodiesel - made from groundnuts, pumpkin seeds, jatropha, and palm oil - as a power source for mobile network base stations in the developing world where mains power is unreliable or non-existent.

"In order to reach the next billion mobile users, we need to reach lower-spending segments of the population profitably," said Bert Nordberg, executive vice president, sales and marketing, Ericsson. "By using locally-produced biofuels, we could significantly lower the cost of operating mobile base stations in rural areas."

The three organisations have set up a pilot project in Nigeria to demonstrate the potential of biofuels. They claim that biodiesel has several important advantages over conventional diesel as a power source for base stations.

"Biodiesel can be produced locally, creating employment in rural areas, while reducing the need for transportation, related logistics and security. Biodiesel has a much lower impact on the environment than conventional diesel. The cleaner burning fuel results in fewer site visits and also extends the life of the base station generator, reducing operators' costs."

In the pilot supported by expertise and funding from the GSMA's Development Fund, Ericsson and MTN are setting up a biodiesel-powered base station s in Lagos and will later deploy biodiesel-fuelled base stations in rural regions of south eastern and south western Nigeria

The three organisations are also setting up a supply chain to source a variety of locally-produced crops and process them into biofuel benefiting the local population in the process. The GSMA and Ericsson say they will draw on the findings of the pilot to help operators across the developing world determine whether they can use biodiesel to power their networks in rural areas.