Saturday, 16 June 2012 00:00

A company under the Shyam Group, VNL, is set to introduce Nigeria's first solar powered network called'WorldGSM.
WorldGSM will be the first solar powered broadband network in Nigeria. It has been designed to serve rural populations in developing economies. WorldGSM technology intends to help bring the reach of the current mobile infrastructure to billions of people.

The network draws no power from the electricity grid. It has been designed from the ground up, the hardware, software, towers and network architecture to extend existing GSM networks into areas they could never before serve.

Chairman of Shyam Geoup, Mr. Rajiv Mehrotra, and a veteran in the telecommunication industry, said, 'WorldGSM is a completely solar powered broadband network solution for rural and remote locations.
He said the clear cut agenda is to cater for rural consumers who don't live in cities and have Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) of $3 dollars or less; and for that, a solution was required, which does not run on diesel or the network would never be viable orprofitable."

"The general purpose network of GSM is entirely unsuited to the unique challenges of serving rural and remote communities. As operators continue to expand their networks into these areas, these challenges can escalate to a point where any further expansion is no longer viable. As a result, vast portions of the developing world are denied telecommunication access. Power was clearly not an issue when GSM was conceived. A conventional base station site alone requires about 3,000 to 5,000 watts to run — not including any Base Station Controller (BSCJ or Mobile Switching Center (MSC)," Mehrotra said.