To aid telecommunication market in India, Ericsson, Swedish telecom equipment giant, has come up with its new energy-efficient and cheap radio base station site concept, called Ericsson Tower Tube in Hyderabad.

Speaking on this, Mr. P Balaji, vice-president (marketing and strategy), Ericsson India, said, “The company has set up a prototype of the Tower Tube at Ibrahimpatnam near Hyderabad and would decide about the location of the production facility depending on the customers it would get.”

The company’s Jaipur-based plant has the capability to make about 8,000 base stations on a monthly basis.

Tower Tube is a self-contained site of about 5m diameter at the base, which houses all equipment.

The company said that Tower Tube shuns the need of feeders and cooling systems. It uses 40% less electricity and creates 30% less carbon emission as compared to customary towers.

Tower Tube is designed specifically to lessen the overall ownership cost for clients and provide an energy-efficient and cost-efficient means of communications.

“While traditional towers cost Rs 30 lakh to Rs 40 lakh, Tower Tube will reduce the total cost of ownership and the entire investment can be recovered in two to three years,” Mr. Balaji said.

He added that more than 100,000 of such towers will be developed by the next few years.

“This is a good opportunity to the industry as a whole and for us as a company. We hope to capture a significant share of this,” he also said.

While lecturing on the occasion, Ajay Bhattacharya, administrator of the Universal Services Obligation Fund, which was formed with an objective of providing telecom services in rustic and distant regions, said that the Fund is presently involved in setting up 7,800 towers to witness mobile coverage in homes of more than 2,000 population across the country at an expenditure of more than Rs 500 crore.

“About Rs 14,000 crore funds are available with us and we are attempting to put up 10,000 more towers in the second phase with an investment of about Rs 5,000 crore in a couple of months that would cover habitations having over 5,000 population,” Bhattacharya said.

Lors-Olof Sundell, programme manager of Ericsson tower tube, said the towers manufactured in India could be exported to China, Arab countries and East Africa.