Now, one charger for all mobile phones

While travelling and having forgotten to take along your mobile phone charger, you might have often wished and wondered why there cannot be one charger for all cell phones. Well, the days of cursing are now over.

The International Telecommunication Union has announced the success of its expert team in finalising an energy efficient standard mobile charger for all the cell phones in the world, irrespective of which company has manufactured them.

ITU, whose 5th World Telecommunication Development Conference opened in Hyderabad, said that the standard mobile charger will soon hit the market and will go a long way in reducing the green house emissions.

Dr Hamdoun Toure, secretary general, ITU, announced the development at a press conference on the sidelines of the conference and said that this was another evidence of the fact that ITC was the most environment friendly industry where the green gas emission was only 2.5 per cent to 3.1 pre cent.

The new Universal Charging Solution is the success of the ITU's telecommunication standardisation bureau.

Its director Malcolm Johnson told the press conference that the standard charger would reduce 13.6 million tonnes of CO2 emission per annum and 82,000 tonnes of redundant chargers.

Johnson said that there was no resistance from the telecom industry to this. "We have worked along with the industry. It is an industry-led development. All the main players have adopted it."

Once this charger comes in to the market, there will be no need for the consumers to buy a new charger every time they buy a new handset. The new charger will also consume less energy.

ITU is the leading United Nations agency for information and communications technology issues with its headquarters in Geneva and it has coordinated the shared global use of the radio spectrum, promoted international cooperation in assigning satellite orbits, worked to improve telecommunication infrastructure in the developing world, established the worldwide standard that foster seamless interconnection of a vast range of communication systems.

Hamadoun Toure said that the telecommunications revolution was helping in fighting the climate change in more ways than one. Giving an example he said that most of the meeting of the ITU were being held through video conference and other such facilities instead of people travelling long distances to be physically present.