LIVE FROM THE GSMA MOBILE ASIA CONGRESS 2010: The GSMA Development Fund has partnered with Lighting Africa, a joint IFC and World Bank programme, to launch the Community Power from Mobile (CPM) initiative. CPM will support and encourage mobile network operators (MNOs) and tower-sharing companies in developing countries to provide excess power generated by their base stations to local, off-grid communities. 

CPM plans for pilot projects in East Africa and India to be launched in Q1 2011. The GSMA is working with a number of its members and other industry stakeholders including partners in India and East Africa who are now investigating or trialling new business models in providing power beyond the base station. GSMA members are planning to install 640,000 off-grid base stations by 2012 across the developing world in close proximity to off-grid populations. By mid-2012, the GSMA said CPM will have developed commercially viable business model(s) and assisted 10 MNOs to expand their rollouts across the developing world.