

A Solar Powered, 50-Watt Cellular Network For India - chaosmachine
http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/24511/?a=f

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pyre
How many users are they expecting to garner by deploying these cell 'towers'
to _off-the-grid_ , rural locations? Sure the base station is solar-powered,
but the users themselves need power for their cellphones, no? How many poor,
rural towns that are off-the-grid have solar panels for cellphone chargers?

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surki
One of the main issue is continuous power supply. You might get power for
couple of hours a day which is good enough for charging mobile. But then
towers would need to have a generator for 24x7 operation. So this technology
fills that gap.

