Tech

Mobile Phone Systems to Go Green

Tahmina Khan Tithi

In modern Bangladesh mobile phones have become a very integral part of everyone's life. Though there is no reliable statistics, it is quite sure that we consume a good amount of power to charge our mobile phone batteries everyday.

When the fuel inefficient country is suffering from severe energy crisis, experts insist us to be very careful not to waste a single unit of energy. Whenever my NOKIA handset battery is full, it shows a message 'Battery full. Save energy and remove charger from wall socket'. Every time I see the message I thank NOKIA for reminding me to unplug my charger and save the unnecessary wastage of power of priceless electricity.

When the earth is heading towards potentially devastating energy crisis due to a decline in the fuel availability, experts have been working hard to find out suitable alternative. Many recognised handset manufacturers are working to design less power consuming and solar powered handsets as well as many mobile-communication operators are also interested to have renewable-energy systems for them.

In recent time India has proposed a plan for solar powered cell-phone towers. At the same time a leading Chinese cell-phone operator has already set up the world's biggest solar-energy-powered base station in their country. These days NOKIA is working to manufacture cell-phones that will use ambient radio waves. This prototype can provide 50mW power from radio waves, which is sufficient to power a cell-phone in standby mode. LG, Samsung, Sharp and some other brands have launched some latest handsets with all new prototypes using solar power.

As solar powered cell-phones gain popularity, cell-phone chargers are also becoming eco-friendly. In a very short time cell-phone chargers with environment friendly materials and powered by renewable energy sources will be available in market. There are also plans for mobile phone cells that can generate power from water or some unusual sources like cold drink or alcohol!!

So we hope the day is not far when the cell-phone communication system will be fully powered by renewable energy and we will get a total 'green' communication system. Till then let's continue the practice of saving unnecessary power wastage by unplugging the charger when the battery is full.

(The writer is a student of Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology)