Information Madness

Every time I changed my mobile phone, I cursed these mobile manufactures for the different mobile chargers. Samsung mobile charger will not work with Nokia charger, Nokia charger will not work with Sanyo or Sony and LG mobile charger will be totally different than Motorola Mobile charger. What the ****. I always thought that they should have some kind of industry standard for mobile chargers the way we have electrical outlet standard.

Finally GSM Association and 17 leading mobile operators and manufacturers announced that they are committed to implementing a cross-industry standard for a universal charger for new mobile phones. This will ensures that the mobile industry adopts a common format for mobile phone charger connections and energy-efficient chargers resulting in an estimated 50 per cent reduction in standby energy consumption, the potential elimination of up to 51,000 tonnes of duplicate chargers and the enhancement of the customer experience by simplifying the charging of mobile phones.

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.

The group agreed that by the 1st January 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 OMTP (Open Mobile Terminal Platform), the industry body who developed the technical requirements behind UCS.

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 – some of the world's largest mobile operators and manufacturers who together are committed to making a universal charging solution a reality up to 2012 and beyond.

Check out the press release