Orange Guinea Conakry and Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) are deploying more than 100 base stations fully powered by solar energy, connecting remote parts of rural Africa. Using Ericsson’s energy-efficient base stations, a hybrid diesel-battery solution and solar panels, Orange is increasing mobile coverage in rural and urban areas, while taking concrete steps towards its target of reducing CO2 emissions by 20 percent by 2020. This enables remote areas without an established power grid to get access mobile communications.

Alassane Diene, CEO of Orange-Guinea Conakry, says: “We are reducing our energy bill. These base stations are also easier to install and require less maintenance than the traditional site. They also offer greater reliability and therefore considerably improved quality of service”

Jan Embro, President of Ericsson for sub-Saharan Africa, says: “It is extremely exciting to be able to run sites on alternative energy sources. Limiting dependency on fossil fuels brings many advantages, but the greatest is the ability to offer sustainable connectivity to low-income users in remote areas across Africa”

Ericsson’s hybrid diesel-battery energy solution replaces one of a site’s diesel generators with a bank of specially designed batteries that can handle a large amount of charging and discharging. This self-contained power solution can be set to meet the batteries’ optimal charging and discharging levels, extending the lifetime of the battery and the generator, and reducing energy-related costs by about 50 percent.

The Ericsson BTS 2111 radio base station is a main-remote solution without any active moving parts such as cooling fans. It reduces energy consumption up to 50 percent, allowing the site to be fully powered by solar energy, supported by a battery bank for 24/7 operation.

This is from an Ericsson press release — here.

First a marker. Kudos to all involved in moving forward with this project. Even the green aspects. Using solar reduces fuel costs and hence trucking and labor to keep the diesel plant going. That helps reduce overall subscriber rates.

Now for the rant. While even Africa moves forward with what appears to be a disjointed country by country deploy of wireless. We here in the US, a contiguous land and political mass are stuck in bureaucratic wrangling, antiquated mindsets and duopoly follies that hold back any serious attempt at a wireless deployment. Hell our own government has delayed the 700mhz deploy by its foolish delay of the DTV transition.

Question is, who is living in what Third World Country? Right now I don’t see a difference.

I ask that question because there is a move afoot by the Commerce Committee under Rockefeller to push the DTV rollout to sometime in June. Now think how stupid this idea is. -

• We are less than 3 weeks away from a cut over. If a TV station intended to stay on the air, operating, they would have already made the capital investments to go digital. So the delay does not buy the stations anything financially.
• For the consumer, well yeah they get a reprieve. But it does not accomplish anything. Human nature, if the consumer has not bought a converter by now they are blissfully unaware or like many just won’t do anything till the screen goes to snow. Delaying will not alter that behavior.
• Heck even for the Telcos want to see a delay to avoid spending money right now on 700mhz, 6 months does not do much for them. For them better the delay is 1 year or better yet 2. All this does is give a little more breathing room for planning.

So the nanny state Pols yet again meddle in affairs wringing their hands over ‘concerns for the poor’. Hmm can’t afford $10? ($50 converter - $40 Fed coupon) Rockefeller is a bigger fool that I imagined.

Linky.

Update: Just announced on Fox News, 6:54pm CT. It is a done deal. The DTV transition is to be delayed for 4 months. Ok where do I go to pick up my Karnack outfit??? Johnnnyyyyy!!

The House in a stimulus move has passed a measure approving $1Bn for wireless broadband grants in rural undeserved areas. To certain extent that jives with our observations in the post below. The interesting piece is that the grants have open access provisions tied to them. That’s a component of a measure we can agree on. –

The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved legislation that makes at least $1 billion available in wireless broadband grants and keeps intact open-access provisions opposed by the mobile-phone industry.

Six billion dollars of the $825 billion economic recovery measure is earmarked to foster deployment of high-speed Internet service in unserved and underseved areas of the country. The broadband stimulus measure calls for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a Commerce Department unit that advises the president on tech policy and manages federal government spectrum, to oversee a $2.8 billion broadband grant program. Wireless broadband grants would comprise $1 billion of that funding level. The remainder of the $6 billion is expected to be administered by the Rural Utilities Service’s broadband loan program.

Concerns about spending aside, Congress really is pushing the wrong cart. They ought to be pushing the ‘D’ channel allocation to be completed. It should be receive a considerably higher priority that other aspects of broadband policy at the moment. It is a tool for the defense of the realm, the first order of business for government.

Whether its proper fiscal policy to do this can be left for a while. The devil is in the details as far as spending goes. If it ends up being a .20¢ deployed for every $1 spent then no it is not a good deal.

Linky.

Did I call this or what? I alluded to a possible meltdown in the transition here back this time last year. I avoided the rush and put my marker down early.

So what do we hear coming from various corners? Tales of woe, lack of money, and an unprepared landscape. –

Billed as perhaps the greatest leap in television since “living color,” the transition to digital TV is a mere 39 days away, and in serious trouble: millions of households still aren’t ready for the conversion and a government program created to subsidize the hardware needed by many has run out of money.

Broadcasters want to stick to D(igital)-Day: Feb. 17, as decreed by Congress in back 2005. But some in Washington say we should take more time to ensure that so many of the nation’s TV screens don’t go snowy at the flick of that switch.

[Snicker. So much for Change.]

But that isn’t all, but coming from Obama its enough, but others like Consumers Union, and some broadcast types are asking for delay as well. It sounds painless in principle that a delay of a year for DTV would hurt no one. Well not quite. Keep in mind that the broadcasters have to get off the frequencies for the like of Verizon and AT&T to start deploying 3G services on those bands. Not only that but it would impact any possible deployment of the ‘D’ band for first responders when that comes back up for auction. There is a lot riding on this and it should not brook delay. Broadcasters have known this was coming for 5 years. Consumers have been bombarded 2 years with DTV ads.

Heh.

In this week’s RCR ‘Analyst Angle’ Frank Dickson takes a look at the current handset war. He ticks off a litany of placement analysis on the current players. Much of which I agree with. So what is the point he misses? Well first lets put down the marker –

So what happens to mobile handset providers when the functional of the phone is defined by a third party, open OS? The nature of competition moves from features to cost. The result is that margins begin getting squeezed and competitive advantage is determined by those with the lowest cost manufacturing. As the market makes the transition to cost based competition, the process is never pleasant.

The battle for the platform is an enormous threat to the existing business models of the rest of the mobile community. New competitors battling for platform control do not need to worry directly about network infrastructure or compatibility impacts. Internet issues such as spam, viruses and person-to-person file sharing could have massive ramifications for existing mobile operators. The impact of offloading data traffic from 3G networks to Wi-Fi networks on mobile data revenues is of little concern to the new providers. The new breed of platform combatants seems to have a mobile manifest destiny, looking to capture not only platform control but also the service and content revenue.

” The nature of competition moves from features to cost.”. Well when has this never happened? Think of anything, computers, cars, steel, etc. The cost of the goods are continually being pushed downward by competition in the marketplace. The handset makers should be immune from this capitalist fact? I think not. Handset MFR’s have relied for too long on their cozy relationship with the carriers to bury some of the largess of the CPE in subscription contracts. ThirdPipe has for 2 years stated that such practices delay the shift and should stop.

Features to cost? Hmm. If anything the features that are being heaped on the smartphone component of the CPE market are growing not dwindling. The iPhone has its 10,000th app at the online iPhone store. Android is having similar success on their side as well. Such growth is spurred by an ecology that fosters third party software development. In that type of environment, the development growth INCREASES as the hardware costs dwindle. The other irony is features for whom? Up until it was dead certain that Android would make it to the marketplace, most of the CPE makers were only offering closed systems and their version of ‘black’ from the Henry Ford Industrial Arts Hall of Fame.

Which brings us back to Mr. Dickson’s list. In a world where a cellphone is as smart as you want it, has the power of a PIV chip and costs $75 what happens to that cast of characters? –
More on It Misses the Point of the Shift

Verizon, who has been working overtime to FUD WiMAX via the new Clearwire out of existence, seems to be a believer in the technology after  all. No, they are not adopting the technology for their own 4G use, but they have stated that their LTE service will appear magically out of thin air next year. If you’re Verizon, the best reason to claim you’ll have alledgedly better product to market quickly is to slow the take rate of your competitors offering. Naturally we will be here to document that miracle as it unfolds before our eyes, so stay tuned.

“We expect that LTE will actually be in service somewhere here in the U.S. probably this time next year,” said Dick Lynch, executive vice president and chief technology officer of Verizon Communications, in a speech at Cisco Systems‘ C-Scape conference in San Jose, California. That would represent a more aggressive timetable than many observers have expected for the high-speed data system, which has been pegged for initial deployments in 2010 and wide rollouts starting in 2011.

LTE is a fourth-generation wireless data system expected to be the next step up in speed and capacity for carriers using the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) platform, which is dominant in most of the world. Like WiMax, it should deliver multiple megabits per second of throughput. (Yahoo)

It’s amazing how much of the tech press and big tech blogs have run this story as the certain death of WiMAX. It’s true that Spint/Clearwire has had a bunch of trouble getting their network off of the ground, but they have and it’s working. There is still a big bunch of deploying ahead to build a national network. The rub with reporting Verizon’s LTE as a sure fire Clear wire killer is that Verizon has just as many obstacles ahead as Clearwire, and maybe a few more. The biggest unresolved issue is backhaul. It’s the main factor in slowing Clearwire’s progress, and Verizon has no bigger existing pipes to their towers. In fact the big V has struggled for years just to get much lower speed 3G service working. Then there is the underlying technology. WiMAX has had plenty of hiccups along the way to becoming a reality, but it is now in the wild and working as advertised. LTE is still in its infancy without a single working installation, and it’s silly to assume it will work perfectly in its first few generations. Then there’s the capital involved in getting a network built. Verizon is not likely to be able to raise as much money in the debt market as they have been able to in the past - no one is right now.

I’m not a WiMAX cheerleader per se. I hope both Wimax and LTE are up an running ASAP, and competing vigorously. What makes Clearwire’s WiMAX appealing today is its time to market, and it’s direct competitive stance against both mobile and fixed broadband. I’ll offer a crazed cheer to any company that will offer a potential third pipe, even one that’s only 2-4 MBPS. So if Verizon or LTE wants me to cheer, the can buy a big ad on Thirdpipe (like they do on the blogs that spread their FUD), or show me the bandwidth and actually deliver a working product before they ask me to declare a competitor “dead”.