New calls at CommunicAsia: smartphone from LG.

One theme new to CommunicAsia, Singapore's annual telecommunications technology fest was "green" telecoms. The industry is moving towards green solutions as a matter of necessity. The average revenue per user is dropping rapidly, and is (for example) now less than US$6 in India, said Dipesh Mohile, Senior Analyst with Tonse Telecom, an India-based research and investment advisory company.

Telecom producers have to take advantage of every opportunity to add users. As Mohile asked, how do you get base stations into rural areas with no electricity? It's hard and expensive to maintain diesel generators, so operational exchanges are hostage to oil prices - which are rising once again.

In India, two billion litres of diesel are used every year to run remote telecom base stations. By next year, India needs to build another 100,000 base stations, according to Mohile. Backing him up, a report by US-based tech specialist ABI Research estimates that Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRICS) will deploy 230,000 base stations by 2010, largely in rural areas.

Green and clean offerings at the fair.

"The solution is multifold," said Mohile. There are measures to optimise the network and reduce the number of base stations, the operating software can be upgraded and changes can even be made to the base station design to reduce cooling needs.

Changes in operations (such as under energy saver mode during off-peak hours) also reduce power needs. "All these measures, for minor capital expenditure, can reduce power consumption by 75% to 80%," he explained at the CommunicAsia event from 16 to 19 June.

One company offering green solutions was Vihaan Networks Limited (VNL). This Indian company has developed a solar powered GSM base station, which was officially launched during the event. Called WorldGSM, the goal of these base stations is to provide mobile services to the next two billion people for whom it is uneconomical to build networks, where the average revenue per user can be as little as US$2.

Heydecker: plug-and-forget system.

"The base stations cost US$15,000, compared to US$80,000 for a comparable system," said Jeanne-Elise Heydecker, Assistant Vice President for Marketing. "It's so simple that even marketing folk can set it up! It is a 'plug and forget' system - once operating, it requires no maintenance, and no expensive diesel fuel to run."

Udit Mehrotra, a Member of the Board of VNL, said a lot of effort had gone into developing this system, which was focused on rural areas. "The power consumption has been greatly reduced. A typical base station using solar power would require 70 solar panels, that makes it very expensive and require a lot of land to deploy. Our system requires just 2 to 4 solar panels, so any good-sized rooftop would be ideal."

VNL has completed trials of WorldGSM in villages in India, and plans to roll out the product next year into Southeast Asia and Africa.

Time for the smartphone

ASUS's Tina Chan with latest smartphone.

This year is clearly the year of the smartphone. Manufacturers such as ASUS, Blackberry, Huawei, LG, Samsung and ZTE were all launching new models, while players such as Yahoo were launching interfaces for smartphones, and displaying them at CommunicAsia.

Industry analyst Gerd Leonhard pointed that a report from UK-based business publication specialist Informa last month reported that for the first time sales of smartphones exceeded that of notebooks in 2008 and that every analyst covering mobile phones is convinced sales of smartphones will increase this year, despite economic conditions.

US-based market analyst Jupiter Research meanwhile projects that smartphones will take up 27% of the market by 2014, double the 13% of 2008.

The future, believes Leonhard, is radio and TV feeds from the Internet onto mobile devices - for free. "No one is selling content anymore. It has to be free otherwise no one will download it. This is the 'freemium' model - first they give you stuff for free then if you want something better or other services, you pay for it. Or it is bundled with your mobile device."

What economic crisis?

At first glance it was tempting to ask: "what global economic crisis?" during CommunicAsia. The event covered 42,000 sqm, with another 16,000 sqm for its sister event, BroadcastAsia. Together, the two events pulled in 1,923 exhibitors from 60 countries.

Following the host country Singapore with 272 exhibitors, the largest exhibitor at CommunicAsia was China, with 166 exhibitors.

The 30th anniversary of CommunicAsia, despite the global economy and H1N1 fears, was a qualified success. The number of visitors saw a drop to 40,000, compared to 54,000 last year. Estimated sales were at US$1.2 billion.

Dai: fast-developing Southeast Asia market.

Guo: not affected by the global crisis.

Among Chinese companies with a strong presence at the event was ZTE. Said David Dai Shu, Department Director, Corporate Branding and Communications: "there are many customers coming in from South and Southeast Asia. The markets are developing fast and customers need telecoms."

Dai also felt that while the global crisis will cause some to lower their investments, governments in Asia, especially China, have stimulus plans that include investments in telecoms, so ZTE and the industry as a whole will continue to grow.

Allen Guo, Sales Engineer, Singapore branch with the International Business Department of Mainland-based Chinashoto, said: "this is our second time at this event, and we have built a bigger booth. There have been many qualified customers coming in to see us. With 80% of our sales in China, and with China expanding its telecoms, we are not affected at all by the global crisis and can now look more aggressively overseas. Asia-Pacific is definitely the key market."

Thong: showcasing radio access network.

Zakrytnoy: crisis is an opportunity.

China-based Huawei, the world's third largest telecoms vendor, had a huge presence. According to Thong Poh Wah, Director (PR) Asia Pacific Marketing and Strategy Department: "our objective is to showcase our single radio access network concept; operators using this solution will be able to meet all their convergence needs - GSM, CDMA, LTE, Wimax, with seamless integration all the way from 2G to 4G."

Samsung Jet smartphone.

One event veteran seeing the growth of Chinese competition was CBOSS, from Finland. "CBOSS has been here since 2004," said Alexander Zakrytnoy, Deputy Head of International Sales. "It is a great event to build our regional presence. The economic crisis is a great opportunity to get customers to focus on low total cost of operations solutions, which is what CBOSS offers."

He explained: "we're facing fierce competition from Chinese vendors who are getting strong globally. However, our specialty as a billing specialist gives us a niche and we are able to work with many Chinese companies, for example, ZTE."

Daniel Goh, Public Relations Manager, Strategic Marketing, Electronics Business Division, Samsung Asia, was also upbeat about the event and the industry. "The turnout at the show was impressive despite the downturn and H1N1."

from special correspondent Ronald Hee, Singapore