Build-It-Yourself Telecom Towers From VNL
VNL, a Swedish-Indian start-up claims to have developed a solar powered mobile network designed from the ground up to serve rural populations in developing economies — and do it profitably. Called WorldGSM, their product has been getting attention from the media because of its low cost (about $3,500) and near-zero energy consumption (100 watts) requirements. Another attractive feature is the relatively simple installation, without the need of engineers.
The solution is based on 3 hardware components: a base transceiver station, a base station controller and a Mobile switching center. The core network is supported by software which is a Linux based version of gsm standard. There are 2 versions: one for village center (higher voice traffic) and other near roads. Towers in fields could be put in virtual sleep mode to save electricity when there is no usage.
Such inventions have the potential of making a big positive impact for telecom users at the base of the pyramid - the underserved huge population in developing countries who may not spend much. VNL calls it microtelecom.
Here are some excerpts from a recent article which appeard in Wall Street Journal.
To power mobile networks in remote areas today, telecommunications operators pair base stations — the tower-top radio transmitters that form the backbone of mobile networks — with diesel-powered generators and batteries. These are impractical and expensive: Fuel accounts for 65% of the cost of operating a typical base station.
VNL, which has headquarters in New Delhi and Stockholm, has spent the past four years developing a simplified base station that is powered by solar panels and requires just a fraction of the electricity of typical base stations.
But convincing telecom operators to buy a stripped-down base station made by a little-known start-up won’t be easy. VNL is among many companies trying to develop mobile-phone technologies for poor rural areas. Telecom-equipment giants Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Motorola Inc. are all looking into how they could tweak existing telecom gear to run on less electricity or on renewable energy sources.
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