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Wind, Solar & Biofuels to Power Remote Cell Towers
tcd004 writes "How do you set up a cell network when there's no power grid? Namibia, India and Nigeria are building towers using localized power sources to provide critical cell phone access to the most remote parts of their countries. Wind/solar hybrids, and biofuel power plants will power the radio towers, peripheral communications, and even the protective fencing around the installations."
So they're installing electric fences around these sites to prevent theft and looting of equipment/metals? Cute.
Now all someone has to do to compromise that is to booger up the solar panel (Water balloon slingshot with mudpies), or throw a rope into the windmill (or drop it in with a kite) and wait several days.
Thievery and yes, probably because of elephants (think scratching posts).
With the amount of metal that would be in these things and considering the poverty of the countries mentioned, you can be absolutely sure that if the fencing was not electrified, the equipment would be stolen the same night it was installed and sold for scrap metal.
Let's put it this way, even in the stable country of Iraq, entire towers which hold up electrical wires are toppled and sold for scrap. Think what would happen to this equipment if it were placed next to a roadway in one of the three countries and didn't have any form of protection.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
My friend, the prince of nigeria, is going to be calling me about the 100 million dollars he's going to give me for helping him out!
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Here in the US, if somebody wants something, they'd better damned well be ready to pay for it. Here, "you gets what you pays for!". Now, if Cellulite-1 (or whoever) decides to put a tower up, you can bet it'll be the classic sort which requires power and periodic maintainance to remain operational; expenses which will not only be passed along to the consumer, but which will be passed along at a profit! If the cell towers generate their own electricity, there's that much less expense to make a profit on.
Yes, it seems counterintuitive, but why develop a technology which costs less to implement if that technology is going to cut into your bottom line? Current, technologies with a lower TCO provide less profit than conventional technologies.
Those bits of Utah where you drive a hundred miles just north of the AZ/UT border and there's no power, lights, phone, electricity, anything for seemingly forever. The only way to call for help out there is with a satphone.
Talk about no bars in no places!
They have enough sunlight out there in the deserts it should be relatively easy to implement a solar-only with generator-backup power system to keep the sites up, then use microwave point-to-point links between sites and dual uplinks on either side of the network for redundancy in the event sites in the middle fail.
Providers won't bother doing that though, they have no population out there to cover, and why would they care about public safety? They're too busy wasting resources deploying mobile TV and camera phones and video phones and all their other useless nonsense.
how often third world countries embrace alternative sources where as we're told they are too expensive in the first world. There's a good reason many use alternative sources in these countries, the lack of an infastructure for delivering power.