Brief Report and Recommendations

on

Open-house conducted by TRAI on

Green Telecommunications

on March 18, 2011

Submitted to

Dr. J.S. Sarma

Chairman, TRAI

Prepared

by

Prof. Girish Kumar

Electrical Engineering Department

IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai – 400076

(022) 2576 – 7436

gkumar@ee.iitb.ac.in

Report on Open-house conducted by TRAI on Green Telecommunications on

March 18, 2011 at PHD chamber, New Delhi

Introduction

TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India), Delhi had floated a consultation paper on

Green Telecommunications on Feb. 3, 2011. It consisted of total 58 pages and was divided in

Preface, Introduction and three chapters.

Chapter I – Carbon Footprint of Telecommunications Industry

Chapter II – Moving towards Green Telecom

Chapter III – Issues for consultation

Chapter I described what is Green Telecom, what are Green House gases and carbon

footprint, motivation for Green Telecom and estimating carbon footprint. It mentioned that

India has around 3.1 Lakh telecom towers of which about 70% are in rural areas. Presently,

40% power requirements are met by grid electricity and 60% by diesel generators (DG).

Total consumption of diesel is 2 billion litres and 5.3 million litres of CO2 is produced.

(GK comments – Number of telecom towers are more than 4.5 Lakhs in 2011, so the above

numbers are outdated. Currently, Indian Govt. gives Rs. 7/litre subsidy to diesel, so total

subsidy for 2 billion litres of diesel is Rs. 14 Billion = Rs. 1400 crores per year to Telecom

operators.)

Chapter II deals with domestic and global efforts for reduction of carbon footprint, methods

of reducing carbon footprint, promoting R&D for green telecom, and corporate social

responsibility. Several measures for reducing carbon footprint are described, such as,

adoption of energy efficient equipment, innovative technologies, renewable energy (solar,

wind, tidal, biomass, fuel cell, etc), infrastructure sharing, better network planning,

monitoring and reporting, incentive for green telecom, etc.

(GK comments – Why industry wants incentive for green telecom? Is it not our duty as an

Indians, not to pollute our own country, should we not care for our people and environment?

What are we going to give to the future generation?)

Chapter III consists of total 33 issues for consultation – 3.1 to 3.33

(GK comments – Some of the issues are much better known to TRAI, so asking for too

many issues deter common man to reply and that’s why there were only 25 responses from

the entire country.)

Report on Open House on March 18, 2011

Open-house regarding consultation paper on Green Telecommunications by TRAI started at

10:30 am. It was reported that there were total 25 responses and the distribution was:

3 from Consumer’s Group, 2 from Service Providers Association

5 from Service Providers and 15 from Individuals.

A brief presentation was made about Green Telecom and its importance. It was mentioned

that 59% of power consumption for various telecom towers is met by DG due to lack of

power supply. Total 33 questions were sub-divided into 3 groups. It was mentioned that as a

normal practice, first chance will be given to the consumer’s group and individuals followed

by Service providers and associations.

People from Telecom User Group and individuals mentioned about subsidy of diesel to the

tune of Rs. 1400 crores per year is given to Telecom industry, which should be recovered.

Also, DG creates lots of air pollution, sound and vibration. Telecom systems must be

optimized so that overall energy consumption is reduced. Antenna radiation pattern must be

optimized, cable losses to be reduced, transmitted power should be switched off or reduced

considerably in the night as cell phone use is only around 10%.

I mentioned that the transmitted power from the cell towers must be reduced from 100’s of

Watts to 1 to 2 W. This will reduce the harmful effects of cell tower radiation as it is causing

severe health problems to people, birds, animals, trees and environment. I asked all the

people present in the auditorium that I was told by one Taiwanese manufacturer that

maximum amount of power amplifiers sold in India has output power rating of 200W, is it

true? No Service Provider or Association answered that. After that, I said that since this open

house is not on cell tower radiation and it is on green telecom but by reducing the power

transmission from 100’s W to 1 to 2 W, the energy requirement will be substantially reduced,

there will be no need of cooling the high power amplifier, and thereby air-conditioning is also

not required in most of the cases. This substantially reduced power can be easily met by solar

energy or other renewable sources. This way, we can solve both the problems – reduce the

health hazard and reduce the carbon emission. Of course, reducing the transmitted power will

mean lesser distance coverage. This may require 10 to 20 Lakhs of towers or micro or pico

repeaters or in-building solutions, instead of approximately 5 Lakhs towers, which means

more cost.

It was mentioned that renewable energy is expensive and also it is not available all the time.

For example, solar energy is not present all the times, wind is not everywhere, biomass may

not be convenient, etc. The operators said that it must be subsidized.

There was a discussion on Self regulation of the industry, there were divided opinions. It was

mentioned that Govt. should not try to regulate everything, Telecom operators must be

allowed to give self certification that they are meeting all the norms but other mentioned that

self regulation will not work until and unless forced.

(GK comments – Why self regulation/certification is only allowed to Telecom operators?

Why not all the people on the road give self certification that they did not jump red light, why

not all the criminals self certify that they did not do any crime, and so on – then we will not

need police, courts, lawyers, and so on. It will be true Ram Rajya.)

It was mentioned that 60% of cell phone calls are made from home, so fixed mobile

convergence should be used, i.e. transfer from mobile to fixed landline using copper or fiber,

which will also be useful for high speed broadband communication. However, compared to

other countries, India has a very small percentage of landline/fiber connectivity.

It was stated that in a village near Delhi, the cow’s milk yield has gone down from 5

liters/day to 0.5 liters/day after installation of cell towers. Also, sound and vibration of DG

disturbs animals/birds.

People from service providers mentioned several measures being taken by them to reduce the

carbon footprint. They are now moving indoor BTS to outdoor BTS, which saves air-

conditioning cost, newer BTSs are mainly outdoor, switching off few transmitters, automatic

frequency plan, air cooling instead of air-conditioner, better DG, better battery, using solar

and hydrogen fuel, use of e-bills will save paper, etc. However, it was countered that these

measures are incremental in nature, some tweaking done here and there, whereas what is

required is, orders of magnitude change.

Person from Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) mentioned

that Telecom industry has created Lakhs of jobs, provided cell phones to even extremely poor

people at an affordable price, and hence Govt. should not ask them to do anything which will

increase the cost. He said that others are jealous of growth of telecom industry and many

ministries are after them. He even mentioned that an IIT professor is talking about the

radiation hazard because he wants to sell his radiation shield. Since the attack was directly on

me, I replied that yes, I have a company named “Wilcom Technologies Pvt. Ltd.”, and we

have developed Radiation shield. Yet, I am insisting on reducing the radiation level to protect

the people and environment, and if the radiation levels are reduced then who will buy

radiation shield? I mentioned that it is the vested interest of telecom industry that they are

pumping out large power to save money but creating health hazard to the people. At this

point, chairman intervened, not to get personal.

(GK comment– Why chairman did not intervene when AUSPI person was getting personal?)

There were several other comments/suggestion, such as, umbrella coverage for reducing

carbon foot-print, more fiber optic networks, other countries do not have to use too much of

DG as they have better power grid, etc. It was also mentioned that indigenous development

should take place; more money must be spent on R&D activities, etc.

One thing was loud and clear, Service providers and their Associations want that they should

not be monitored, there should not be any regulation on them, and nothing should be

demanded which will increase the cost. I asked, “What is the cost of the human being, birds,

animals, trees, environment, etc.” – no answer given.

(GK comments – Telecom people are providing lakhs of jobs but they are also giving cancer

and serious health problems to lakhs of people, birds, animals, trees, etc. They claim that it is

the fastest growing industry but it is also creating fastest growing health problems, and that is

the reason, why health and environment ministries are after them. Telecom people say that

they are providing cheapest services in the world, but they take money from even the poorest

of the people in the country and take Govt. subsidy, and then nearly 40% of the total

collected money is given to foreign vendors. The technology could have been developed and

manufactured in India and then money would have remained in the country and also created

millions of jobs.)

Recommendations

1. Govt. must adopt immediate policy, say from March 28, 2011, to reduce the transmitted

power to maximum 1 to 2W, which will protect health of the people from harmful effects

of cell tower radiation. This may create signal problem to the people living near the edge

of the circle in the beginning, so public announcement must be made that this is being

done to protect health of the people. People must be educated about adverse health effects

of cell phone and cell tower radiations.

2. Once power transmitted is reduced, power amplifiers may not be required at most of the

places and no cooling will be required. This will reduce the energy requirement

substantially, which can be easily managed by renewable energy sources.

3. Once power requirement is reduced, DG will not be required in most of the places. This

will also save diesel subsidy amount of Rs. 1400 crores/year

4. The above measures will reduce carbon footprint thereby generating carbon credits.

5. Self certification/regulation must not be allowed. Govt. must enforce stringent policies to

monitor the radiation level, air pollution level, etc. near the cell towers. Monitoring must

be done by third party and extremely heavy penalty must be handed out in case of any

violation as it is directly related to the health of the people, birds, animals, trees,

environment, etc.

6. All the people living close to the tower, who have suffered from the high radiation, must

be compensated. It should come under corporate social responsibility.

7. Greater emphasis must be given to R&D to develop better solutions.

8. Indigenous development and Indian manufacturers must be given the preference.

9. Govt. must make a rule that atleast 90% of the telecom related products must be

manufactured in India, this will help create millions of jobs in India and also most of the

money will remain within the country.

(Prof. Girish Kumar)

P.S.- GK comments in the above text are my comments, which I would have liked to make

but could not, and are not part of open house.