In telecom front, Pak is greener than India

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Even as the global environment NGO Greenpeace is on a campaign urging Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel to adopt a green policy to bring down carbon emissions, neighboring Pakistan has apparently gone much ahead in the 'green path' in the telecom front by adopting green technologies within the industry.

Fortunately, the Indian telecom sector is not shying away, and admits that the telecom industry in the terror-torn neighboring country is much better than its Indian counterpart when it comes to green adoption.

An industry veteran on conditions of anonymity said that while we debate on the feasibility of adopting solar energy, the neighboring country is much ahead in its deployment.

Also read: Scrap diesel subsidy of telcos: Greenpeace

Over the past couple of years, Pakistan has deployed solar-powered BTS in its rural areas. As part of a global initiative, Telenor Pakistan, a subsidiary of Norway’s Telenor, is committed to cut drastic carbon emissions by 2011. The mobile operator is expected to reduce carbon footprint by up to 40 per cent by 2017.

Telenor Pakistan has already forged a contract with Nokia Siemens Networks to procure equipment for off-grid sites to harvest solar energy, and is committed to deploy it for the new sites. In 2008, Pakistan’s Warid Telecom had become the first to deploy the solar-powered macro base station (BTS) in the country.

Speaking to CIOL, J Gopal, Advisor (Technical), DoT said that India’s telecom firms will definitely go green in the days to come. Given the fact of vast geographical area in the country, Gopal said, “We will emulate the similar process in the country but will adopt it gradually.”

TRAI has already recommended the telecom sector to deploy green technologies, he said.

“We’ll contemplate the process that the telecom sector in India will deploy similar solar solution for the entire rural region,” Gopal added.

Nearly 80 per cent of energy in a mobile telecommunication network is consumed by base stations. As per an estimate by GSMA, more than 75,000 new off-grid sites will be built each year through 2012 in developing countries.