You know how it goes when you switch from one handset maker to the other one? Your old cables are useless with the new phone. Handset makers know that but they don’t seem to care much. No more!
At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the GSMA along with 17 leading mobile operators and manufacturers committed to implement a cross-industry standard for a universal charger for new mobile phones. The idea is to adopt a common format for mobile phone charger connections as well as energy-efficient chargers, to reduce up to 50% in standby energy consumption and make life easier for the mobile phone users, as the some time. In other words, the move could eliminate up to 51,000 tonnes of duplicate chargers!
As for the timeline, the group has set an ambitious target that by 2012 a universal charging solution (UCS) will be widely available in the market worldwide and will use Micro-USB as the common universal charging interface. Moreover, it has been agreed that by the January 1st, 2012, the majority of all new mobile phone models available will support a universal charging connector and the majority of chargers shipped will meet the high efficiency targets set out by the Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP).
The initial group of companies who have joined the GSMA’s UCS initiative include 3 Group, AT&T, KTF, LG, mobilkom austria, Motorola, Nokia, Orange, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telenor, Telstra, T-Mobile and Vodafone.