NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Access to energy can be a serious obstacle for many mobile phone users who need to re-charge their phones when they find their battery is dead but have no means in doing so. This in turn is a major problem for mobile operators who are constantly losing revenue from the reduced call time. In light of this, Freeplay Energy, a company that specialises in self-sufficient products that gives freedom and independence from traditional power sources, has developed a solution that may help eliminate this dilemma.

The Freecharge Mobile Phone Charger has been developed to provide emergency power to mobile phones and allows the user to make and receive calls at any time ? even with a flat battery. ?GSM telephony is far more accessible across Africa than electricity is. This leads to many people possessing mobile phones but not having access to power to charge them when the battery dies,? says the product?s Business Development Manager, Phil Goodwin. ?Consequently, we had heard of stories where people from villages in Kenya were sending their phones in packages to relatives in cities so they could charge their phones. All of this results in the Telco losing revenue. As many mobile phones are also communal where one phone will be shared amongst many in a single village, the operator is not just losing the valuable talktime of one person when the battery is dead but several. What you have to realise is that money is not the main limitation to talktime but the availability of energy. Therefore, we produced a portable device that enables the user to have access to meaningful power for their phone where ever they go.?
Story found here.