Telecom Egypt partners with Huawei for Africa’s first green tower

Telecom Egypt (TE) announced on Thursday the implementation of Africa’s first eco-friendly, integrated solution to provide mobile networks through utilising environmentally-friendly tower made of Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP), with wireless availability, in cooperation with Huawei.

The companies labelled the tower the optimum steel alternative. The FRP poles reportedly produce 43 percent less carbon dioxide emissions compared to steel.

Through this cooperation, Telecom Egypt is set to become the first operator in Egypt and Africa to install this green tower. The tower is around 18 metres high, with a special camouflage fence made of environmentally-friendly materials and is supported by integrated wireless access solutions, TE and Huawei added in a joint statement. It is characterised by its high resistance in severe environmental conditions, such as corrosion due to exposure to chemicals and high temperatures.

“The implementation of this type of mobile site in Egypt is unprecedented and has also underscored the efforts done by all those in charge of the project, and their capability of implementing the entire site in a timely manner and a systematic way, as per the best international quality standards that have to do with the green concept solutions.” Adel Hamed, managing director and CEO of Telecom Egypt, said.

Telecom Egypt’s green external sites also depend on modern technologies for wireless access devices, such as the technology of antennas integrated with signal amplifiers, which contribute to lowering the energy consumption of one site by about 40 percent, if compared to traditional sites, Hamed added.

These modern technologies also contribute to improving the signal quality by about 20 percent, when compared to regular antennas, which will further result in reducing the number of stations to be installed, enhancing the preservation of the environment, and hence achieving the aimed-for sustainable development, he noted.

The TE official further said his company also relies on state-of-the-art versions of operating software that support the latest features, pertinent to energy saving, such as the feature of switching off signal amplifiers for some frequencies during low load hours, which helps reduce energy consumption by an average of 24 percent.

Jim Liu, CEO of Huawei Egypt, said that the company dedicated great attention to developing the infrastructure of information and communication technology in Egypt which is why it had joined hands with Telecom Egypt, the leader in the telecommunications market in Egypt and the Middle East.

Huawei is keen on harnessing all the necessary, innovative technologies to save energy to build a sustainable future, which certainly generates zero carbon emissions, Liu noted. According to recent studies, FRP poles produce 43 percent less carbon dioxide emissions, compared to steel, and reduce E2E energy consumption by nearly half for manufacturers and related transportation, he added.

Liu also explained that energy solutions for green outdoor sites depend on passive cooling, which eliminates the need for air conditioning and thus leads to a 47 percent reduction in energy consumption compared to sites with indoor rooms for devices. He also said the process depends on the integration of solar energy with the main electricity network, with relative dependence on green energy, namely the solar one, as the solar panels will provide about 2 kilowatts, which will lead to a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent.

Developing an environmentally-friendly green site aimed at using smart materials instead of the traditional ones that were previously adopted in mobile terminals. For instance, reverting to FRP in manufacturing leads to minimising steel sections up to 95 percent, which leads to minimal pollution to the environment. It is smarter to use integrated Radio Access Network (RAN) equipment, which has bandwidth carrier dynamic shutdown and time domain deep code shutdown, which will lower power consumption by about 24 percent in a low traffic period.