Ethan Zuckerman posted about an interesting investment of the Indian telecom vendor VNL, which is related to a former idea of his and Russel Southwood’s – Chief Editor of Balancing act, a portal which :

…seeks to be the primary source for information on the telecoms, Internet and audio-visual media industries in Africa. [Snippet taken from here]

It is about solar powered GSM towers – the link:

an announcement by Indian telecoms vendor VNL that they’ve developed a solar-powered, battery back up low power GSM tower. [Snippet taken from here]

The towers are specifically designed to run solely on the power the sun provides. A comment from VNL themselves:

VNL said that, with solar power, WorldGSM both reduces the operating expenses for mobile operators and contributes to a much lower environmental impact. [Snippet taken from here]

This is, of course, a great solution for areas with no connection to the electricity network.