50 Energy Opex Saving Strategies for Telecom Operators - Green Telecom

Energy is one of the largest opex head for Telecom Operators. Telecom Operators are looking for energy opex savings strategies both for increasing profitability and going Green. Equipment Vendors are looking at opex saving strategies from piece meal perspective limited by breadth of their solutions portfolio. Below is a representative list of some of the Opex Saving Strategies and Possibilities for Telecom Operators

Planning1. Reduce Number of BTS ( Decrease Cell Sites , Increase subscribers per site)
2. Reduce Energy Consumption per Site
3. More spectrum .Less BTS
4. Electricity Low Tariff Usage
5. Claim – Carbon Credits
Sharing
6. Passive Infrastructure Sharing - Tower Sharing, Power Sharing, Genset Sharing
7. Active Sharing - RAN Sharing, RNC Physically Shared but logically separated
8. Backhaul Sharing – Infra Sharing
9. Agreement to Switch one network off in low load scenario
Shelters10. Replacing Shelters with Cabinets
11. Green Shelters – PUF Panels

Cooling12. Replacing Air Con with Free Cooling, HEX , TEC
13. Intelligent Remote Air Con Control (Temperature, Humidity, Clock Time)
14. No AirCon Requirement on Base Station
15. Compressor Less Air Cooling – AirCon
16. Precision Air Con (PAC)
17. HFC Free Cooling System
18. Inverter based Air Con
19. Passive Cooling Method- Phase Change Material for Storing Thermal Energy

Rectifiers20. High Efficiency Rectifier
21. Sleeping Functionality in Rectifier for Low Loads

Batteries22. Increase Battery Life - High Temperature Battery , High Cyclic Battery
23. Battery – Remote Discharge Test
24. New Battery Technologies, - Flow Battery, Ni Cd Batteries, Tubular Gel Batteries

Fuel Management and Gensets25. Diesel Genset – Remote Fuel Measurement and Management
26. DC Power Genset
27. Genset Remote Management - DG Delay Start Feature

Monitoring and Control28. Remote Passive Infrastructure and Environment Monitoring
29. Remote Theft Control
30. Measuring Power

Renewable Energy
31. Solar Power with Remote Panel Cleaning, Solar Cooling for Data Centres
32. Wind Power – Vertical Axis, Horizontal Axis
33. Bio Mass, Bio Fuel
34. Fuel Cell – Hydrogen, Methane
35. Genset Battery Hybrid Solution
36. Geo Thermal Cabinets
37. Pico Hydro

Base Station38. Base Station – Increase in Power Efficiency of RF Power Amplifiers, Base Band Processing Circuits
39. Auto TRX Shutdown
40. Sleeping functionality Base Station – Low Load, User mobility scenarios
41. Use of Micro Sites Along with Macro Sites
42. Strategic Use of Repeaters and Relays
43. FemtoCell – Home Base Station
44. Use Low Powered Micro BTS, Micro GSM
45. Use Human Sensors – Body to Body Network

Core Networks46. Core Network – Sleep Mode Technologies, Proxy Server Techniques
47. IP Based Core Network
48. Energy Efficient Routers – IP/ MPLS

Backhaul49. Adaptive Ethernet Transmission rate switching depending on traffic load
50. Mobile Backhaul – Ethernet interfaces- optimized hub/switch site solution
51. PMP Microwave Outdoor

Network Architecture52. Energy Efficient Deployment Architecture ( MIMO, HARQ, Beam Forming, Wireless Mesh Network, Distributed DSLAM)
53. Voice Compression Technologies – More MON
54. Local Call Intracell – Mobile Media Gateway

Infrastructure Optimization55. Infra Optimization Solutions ( Separate Battery Cooling, Telecom Towers as Wind Towers, Shelter Roofs as Solar Panels)
56. Remote Radio Units closer to antenna. Lower losses thru feeder cables
57. Tower Mounted Antennas


GO GREEN TELECOM

Read: WHO IS THAT LADY?

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Little bit of information of my new book:

"WHO IS THAT LADY?" 

Website/ Where to buy - http://www.whoisthatlady.com

Facebook Page - http://www.facebook.com/WhoIsThatLady

A Business Fiction book - "Who is that lady?"

The book is about an idea that is converted into a billion dollar business, about a belief that an idea can be implemented and about formulating right strategy for converting an idea into a business. The plot harmoniously weaves around complex business fundamentals, required to set up, run and make a business successful, presented in lucid, easy to understand style. The novel is about implementation, about challenges that can be overcome, about success, about friendship, about passion, and about fun above all! All in all a hilarious and inspiring story on entrepreneurship and idea possibilities!

The book has got good and encouraging reviews from readers so far.

Dr. T. R. Madanmohan ( Ex Associate Professor IIM Bangalore ) says, “Reading ‘Who is that lady?’ brought vividly the moments of celebration and anguish of "identification of business opportunity", validation and construction of business model and implementation. A wonderful, written as a novel, that should be read by all current and future business leaders. Wish the book was available around 2005 for my class of Managing Technology led business at IIM Bangalore. I am sure the class would have devoured and gained much more from the book.” 

Sathish Sheshadri ( Management Consultant at IBM) says, “India is renowned for using stories to convey great life lessons. Who is that Lady could well become such a legendary story on the topic of innovation and entrepreneurship. Everyone from students to CEOs will find a lot to reflect on, from the pearls of wisdom that the authors have shared through the protagonist, Pratik.”

Major Pooja Gupta says, “The book makes you think... if there is anything in this world which is impossible.”

Subir Dhar (Principal Consultant at Infosys) says, “This book will inspire India’s restless youth to take up entrepreneurship.”

Neerav Nimesh (Entrepreneur) says, “An entertaining book, which is not only a good novel but also a very good book on management. The author has been able to explain the fundamentals of every aspect of business whether marketing, planning, strategy, organizational structure, H.R., lines of communication, team work, goal setting etc and has done so without appearing to dispense "gyan".

Website/ Where to buy - http://www.whoisthatlady.com

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Renewable Energy Outsourcing – What Next in Outsourcing and Renewable Energy?

Renewable Energy

Increasing Use of Renewable Energy is a Global Trend. Focus is on improvement in technology and availability of options – Solar, Wind, Fuel Cells etc

But there is no business case of Renewable Energy without government subsidies or incentives – grants, feed in tariffs, capex subsidy, tax breaks etc

Only off grid areas where there is no electricity supply have business case for implementing Renewable Energy provided there is strong business need for electricity

Off grid Telecom Sites have strong business need for electricity and have business case for implementing Renewable Energy

Current business model is prohibiting wide scale use of Renewable Energy in Telecom Sites . Why?

1. Capex intensive projects - Benefits are long term but investment is short term.

2. Renewable Energy needs specialized resources to plan and implement projects

• Which source to choose? – Solar, Wind, Fuel Cell etc or optimum combination of each
• Which Technology to choose? – Myriad of Technology to choose from – PV, Thin film, Poly Crystalline, Solar Thermal, Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine, Vertical Axis Wind turbine, Methane Fuel Cell, Hydrogen Fuel Cell, Flow Batteries etc
• How to get reliable data on performance of different technologies? – Technologies are untested for long term benefit claims by vendors

3. Difficulty in running Operations and Maintenance of Renewable Energy Operations?

• All renewable energy resources are intermittent and nature dependent. How best to optimize their usage and prepare for redundancy?
• Decision on Capex vs Opex
• Maintain specialized workforce for trouble free operations.
• Scale might not be enough to recruit specialized human resources and deploy new technologies for proper operations

In short Renewable Energy needs specialization and scale that is not core to Telecom Operators. This is a familiar problem with widely accepted solution in other industries – Outsourcing




What drives Outsourcing ? Focus on core business processes and outsource other businesses processes. Here other processes are also specialized processes that need specialization and scale. Third party specialized service provider can provide these services with agreed Service Levels (SLA)

Outsourcing started with Manufacturing and later got extended to IT and Business Processes. Advances in Technologies and rise in expertise in developing countries led to offshoring as an extension of outsourcing concept


Applying Outsourcing to Renewable Energy Problem

Solution – Renewable Energy Outsourcing


Outsourcing services provided by Third Party (Outsourcing Company) to Telecom Operators. Outsourcing company will

• Sell Power at unit or Kwh Basis
• Utilize Economics of Specialization and Economics of Scale
• Decide among combination of one or more different renewable energy options
• Decide Capex
• Own Renewable Energy Assets
• Responsible for all Opex and Maintenance
• Responsible for Service Levels as per Agreement (SLA)

This is different from equipment financing or Leasing Model since apart from financing, outsourcer has additional responsibilities of dimensioning and deciding on optimum Capex and Opex , to meet SLA's.

This model can be further extended. Outsourcing Company can

• Centralize and provide renewable energy services to multiple telecom clients from single site.
• Provide Renewable Energy to other needy customers such as schools, hospitals, offices, community centres and agriculture farms from single renewable energy site.

Possibilities are endless and Model is scalable.

The demand from Telecom Operators is strong, but supply is not catching up ( some local companies are experimenting on this though). Here also, outsourcing industry can show the way. Earlier Outsourcing was provided by shared service or captive operations, later outsourcing moved to third party as this industry evolved.

In Renewable Energy Outsourcing, Telecom Operators can come together and invest in Renewable Energy Outsourcing Company as they did in Tower Infrastructure Companies. Later supply will increase to fill up the demand.

With friends like Vodafone, Blackberry doesn’t need enemies

Analysts are predicting that RIM or maker of Blackberry is going down with competition from likes of Apple and other smartphones.

Analysts are of further opinion that only miracle can lift this company and this is going the path of Palm.

I had the different opinion. I loved my blackberry and so did I saw my other corporate colleagues and friends love for the blackberry.

I was bullish on RIM other than my personal preference , analysing RIM from Warren Buffetology. A similar analogy: Buffet mentioned that when American Express was going down he went around and saw People using American Express cards. Thus, he was convinced that American express will never go down and he made huge dividends on this bet.

I was thinking on the above lines that similarly Blackberry will never go down. Corporate guys love this and other guys aspire this. Blackberry is like a status symbol or an aspirational value: a corporate honcho using blackberry like he drives Mercedes or stays in a six star hotel or drinks johny walker or wears Armani…

As long as the status symbol is maintained and users love using blackberry, RIM is safe. But that is changing now….

Watch this ad of Vodafone aired on television in India that is ridiculing office guys and attracting a larger crowd to blackberry with tag line “Not just for office guys”




I sincerely hope Blackberry protects its core corporate office guys rather than bending it self to teenage crowd who may any day ditch blackberry for stylus Apple.

Telecom M&A Buzz Q3 Jul - Sep 2010

Based on True Rumours and Telecom Research

DoCoMo, Pakistan

NTT DoCoMo is reported to be interested in making investment in Pakistan (Jul 2010) – Economics of Globalization

Millicom Tigo, Honduras

Millicom has got operating control of its Celtel Operations in Honduras (Jul 2010)- Economics of Control

Telefonica, Vivo Brazil

Telefonica got control of its Brazilian operations Vivo in a deal with Portugal Telecom $9.8 Billion (Jul 2010) – Economics of Control

Vodafone, China, US, France, Poland

Vodafone selling minority stakes in China Mobile, SFR ,Verizon Wireless and Polkomtel (Jul 2010) – Operation Excellence

Clearwire, Imagine Ireland

Clearwire is buying 7% stake in Irish WiMax Operator Imagine (Jul 2010) – Economics of Technology & Investment

Etisalat , Suntel Sri Lanka

Etisalat is considering acquisition of CDMA operator Suntel in Sri Lanka (Jul 2010) – Economics of Subscribers

Essar, Vodafone India

Essar group is planning to sale its 33% stake in Vodafone Essar (Jul 2010) – Profit Booking

EVN Telecom, Vietnam

EVN Telecom wants to sell its 30% stake to Strategic Investor (Jul 2010) – Funds Requirement

Orascom Poland, Serbia

Orascom is considering investment in Poland and Serbia ( Jul 2010) – Economics of Globalization

Zain Tanzania

Tanzania government keen to buy 60% stake in Zain Tanzania now held by Bharti Airtel (Jul 2010) – Government Control

Copaco, Hola Paraguay

Paraguay’s Landline operator Copaco has purchased Mobile operator Hola (Jul 2010) – Economics of Subscribers

TeliaSonera, Stofa Denmark

TeliaSonera has sold its Denmark subsidiary Stofa to Ratos , a Private Equity Firm ( Jul 2010) – Operations Excellence

Batelco, Bahrain, North Africa, Asia Pacific

Bahrain’s Batelco plans to invest $1.5 Billion on Acquisition in North Africa and Asia Pacific. It looks to buy smaller independent operators. ( Aug 2010) – Economics of Globalization

France Telecom, Medi Morocco

France Telecom is in talks to buy Morroco’s second largest mobile operator Medi Telecom (Aug 2010) – Economics of Globalization. Transaction completed in Sep 2010.

France Telecom, Deustche Telecom, Tusmobil Slovenia

Tusmobil is being sold to an European operator. It can be either France Telecom or Deustche Telecom (Aug 2010) – Economics of Globalization

Orascom, Vimpelcom

Orascom is under talks with Vimpelcom to sell its operations in few countries ( Aug 2010) – Economics of Globalization . Transaction completed in October 2010

Telecom Italia, Telecom Argentina

Telecom Italia is planning to increase its stake in Telecom Argentina (Aug 2010) – Economics of Globalization

DoCoMo, Tata India

DoCoMo is planning to increase its stake in Tata DoCoMo, though denied by Tatas. (Ag 2010) – Economics of Control

Djezzy, Algeria

Algerian government wants to purchase Djezzy from Orascom. ( Sep 2010) – Government Control

Sotel TChad, Chad

Government has sold majority stake in Sotel TChad to UK firm MidCost (Sep 2010) - Privatization

T Mobile , Clearwire , USA

Clearwire is in talks with T Mobile for stake sale to raise funds for network expansion (Sep 2010) – Fund raising

Etisalat , DB Telecom India

Etisalat is planning to raise its stake in Indian Venture DB Telecom (Sep 2010) – Economics of Control

Etisalat, Idea Telecom India

Etisalat is looking for investment in one the incumbent operator and not ruling out Idea Telecom (Sep 2010) – Economics of Globalization

Etisalat , Zain Middle East

Etisialat has submitted bid for $10.5 billion for majority stake in Zains remaining assets in Middle East and Africa (Sep 2010) – Economics of Globalization

Deustche Telecom, Kosovo Telecom (PTK) Kosovo

Five bidders have submitted bids for 75% stake in Kosovo Telecom – Deustche Telecom, Orascom, Turk Telecom, Telekom Austria, SabaFon (Sep 2010) – Privatization, Economics of Globalization

Polkomtel, Poland

75% stake is on sale and it might go to PE players if none of the telecom groups bid. Vodafone has 24% stake and first right of refusal. (Sep 2010) – Profit Booking

SK Telecom, Lighsquared USA

SK Telecom is considering investment in Greenfield LTE Operator Lightsquared. (Sep 2010) -Economics of Globalization and License

TDC Sunrise , Switzerland

Denmakr’s TDC is selling its Swiss subsidiary Sunrise to PE Player CVC. (Sep 2010) – Operation Excellence

Telefonica, Telenor

Is Telefonica , Telenor Merger or strategic alliance possible? – Economics of Globalization

France Telecom, Deutsche Telecom

Is France Telecom , Deustche Telecom merger possible ? France Telecom is denying it but possibility is there. – Economics of Globalization

Telenor, Vimpelcom

Telenor already has significant investment in Vimpelcom. Could these two companies merge? – Economics of Globalization

50 Telecom Procurement Best Practices

Research and Analysis1. Spend Analysis – What, When, Volume, Price, Whom, Approvals
2. Supply Options– Vendor Landscape (Local, Regional, Global)
3. Risk Analysis- Vendor, Country, Component, Material
4. Tax and Duty Analysis – Savings in Bundling, Country of Origin, Local Content, Green

Procurement Strategy, Models and Options5. Global, Regional, Local, Strategy
6. Category Plans – Strategy, Terms and Conditions
7. Global Category Consolidation – Country by Country Analysis – Standardize on Low Cost
8. Breaking up Categories– Cut vendor markups and direct purchase of third party items
9. Multivendor Strategy – Dual Vendor Strategy
10. Benchmarking Internal vs. External, Make vs. Buy Analysis
11. Business Model – Outsourcing, Leasing, Capex vs. Opex, Vendor Financing
12. Risk and Reward- Outcome Based , Revenue Sharing with Vendors

Vendor Selection Process and Vendor Relationship Management13. Vendor Prequalification Process – Relevant Criteria, No Criteria Biasness
14. Tiered Vendor Rankings – Preferred Vendor Status
15. Vendor Rationalization – Few Strategic Vendors
16. Vendor Awards, Certifications
17. Investment in Vendor, Acquiring Vendors, Backward Integration
18. Collaborating with Competitors for Vendor Development
19. Forecast Sharing with Delivery Commitments
20. Vendor Innovation Day
21. Vendor Factory/ Facility Visits
22. Details of Vendors Key Subcontractors and Quality Audit

Pricing and Discounts
23. Reverse Auction – Indicative Volume and Result Commitment
24. Target Pricing
25. Volume Commitment with discounts
26. RFP Process
27. Quarterly updated price list
28. Discount Coupons for future purchases

Contracts and Terms and Conditions
29. Long term contracts with flexibility of renegotiation
30. Legal Inputs Taken – Showstoppers
31. Contract Compliance Management – Trackable
32. Amendments – Approval, Uploaded, Trackable
33. MSA , Statement of Work (SOW)
34. Vendor SLAs or KPIs
35. Customer Exclusivity
36. Late Delivery Penalty- Delivery Commitment
37. Inventory Commitment
38. Extended Warranty with specific warranty conditions
39. Local Content
40. Quality Certificates

Processes41. Specs Analysis – Check for Biasness and Neutralization
42. Sample Testing Process
43. Equipment Monitoring - Life cycle Measurements for Warrant Conditions and Analysis
44. Standard Procurement Guide (used and updated regularly)
45. Standard Templates utilized across company
46. Procurement Policy and Exception Handling
47. Dispute Resolution Process
48. Transparency and Visibility
49. Web based or Automated Procurement system and processes – Invoices, Budget Management, Payment Log – Searchable, Reporting, Monitoring
50. Project Closure Analysis, Procurement Best Practices, Lessons Learnt
51. Continuous improvement process – Lessons Learned and Best Practices implementation

Personnel and Intra Department Collaboration
52. Specialized Personnel – Analytics, Research, Category Specialist, Business Unit Procurement Managers
53. Rotation – Procurement and Business Users
54. Project Management and Procurement Linked – Project Closure Analysis
55. Design Cost Savings – Collaboration between Procurement and Business Units
56. Procurement KPIs aligned with Business Unit KPIs

Read: WHO IS THAT LADY?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Little bit of information of my new book:

"WHO IS THAT LADY?" 

Website/ Where to buy - http://www.whoisthatlady.com

Facebook Page - http://www.facebook.com/WhoIsThatLady

A Business Fiction book - "Who is that lady?"

The book is about an idea that is converted into a billion dollar business, about a belief that an idea can be implemented and about formulating right strategy for converting an idea into a business. The plot harmoniously weaves around complex business fundamentals, required to set up, run and make a business successful, presented in lucid, easy to understand style. The novel is about implementation, about challenges that can be overcome, about success, about friendship, about passion, and about fun above all! All in all a hilarious and inspiring story on entrepreneurship and idea possibilities!

The book has got good and encouraging reviews from readers so far.

Dr. T. R. Madanmohan ( Ex Associate Professor IIM Bangalore ) says, “Reading ‘Who is that lady?’ brought vividly the moments of celebration and anguish of "identification of business opportunity", validation and construction of business model and implementation. A wonderful, written as a novel, that should be read by all current and future business leaders. Wish the book was available around 2005 for my class of Managing Technology led business at IIM Bangalore. I am sure the class would have devoured and gained much more from the book.” 

Sathish Sheshadri ( Management Consultant at IBM) says, “India is renowned for using stories to convey great life lessons. Who is that Lady could well become such a legendary story on the topic of innovation and entrepreneurship. Everyone from students to CEOs will find a lot to reflect on, from the pearls of wisdom that the authors have shared through the protagonist, Pratik.”

Major Pooja Gupta says, “The book makes you think... if there is anything in this world which is impossible.”

Subir Dhar (Principal Consultant at Infosys) says, “This book will inspire India’s restless youth to take up entrepreneurship.”

Neerav Nimesh (Entrepreneur) says, “An entertaining book, which is not only a good novel but also a very good book on management. The author has been able to explain the fundamentals of every aspect of business whether marketing, planning, strategy, organizational structure, H.R., lines of communication, team work, goal setting etc and has done so without appearing to dispense "gyan".

Website/ Where to buy - http://www.whoisthatlady.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Future Energy Scenarios

Some of the possible Future Energy Scenarios

o Wireless Power – Power will be transmitted wireless, Billions of people without electricity will get power the way it happen with cell phone with wireless transmission, battery might not be required in cell phone and other device and may be charged wireless power , Convergence of Telecom Companies with Electric companies

o Renewable Energy and DC Power Homes – Smart grid will enable smooth integration of Renewable energy integration with grid, More and more appliances will run on DC power and ultimately migrate towards DC Power Homes

o Energy Farms – In Future majority of work will be automated or be done by robots – agriculture, manufacturing, army, automated driving flying, service---What will robots need ? only Energy …so tomorrow will be energy farms like of agriculture farms of the past…We humans will work for producing energy for robots!!

• Solving energy crisis and sustainability simultaneously

o Energy crisis and Global warming has simple solution. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can be changed in different form

o C+O2= CO2 greenhouse gas and danger to sustainability, future research will figure out to get C from CO2 in economic feasible –energy crisis solved and sustainability and global warming solved

Obama’s ban on Outsourcing, Cloud Computing and Job Creation

Obama ban Outsourcing / Offshoring

Obama’s ban on outsourcing and offshoring is in the news again. I shared my views on this topic one and half year back when Obama became the President . I wrote then

“If Obama discourages companies to outsource to countries like India, then companies will have a choice either do work in house in US or outsource the work to companies in US. Both the above solutions will not be economically attractive, so companies will have to reconsider Make Vs Buy option and increasingly rely on third party products rather than in-house customized IT solutions.”

Cloud Computing

I revisited my earlier analysis today and I believe that this analysis still holds true. The only major development in last couple of years is the rise of Cloud Computing. So in Make vs Buy Analysis, choice has become wider in Buy Option – apart from Third Party Products, Cloud Computing is also an available option now.

Obama’s ban will only accelerate the trend towards Cloud Computing


Job creation

Will this create new jobs?

The problem of Job creation needs to be analyzed from the global perspective. Global Solution may be creation of additional new jobs for all abilities in all countries.

Every country produces its own mix of "creative or knowledge minds", “process oriented minds” and “ physical labour”. So each country needs to create jobs for all three above categories.

Earlier in general logic of offshoring was that if US is able to offshore its physical labour and process oriented jobs then majority of workforce will move upwards in creative or knowledge jobs. Hence US will be better off. This logic however proved to be flawed. Process oriented minds and physical labour cannot find employment in creative or knowledge professions thus leading to unemployment in US.

Similarly current logic of banning offshoring and leting the process oriented and physical jobs remain in US is also flawed.

You cant eat your cake and have it too. One one hand US wants to have dominant share of worlds knowledge and creative jobs on the other hand US doesn’t wants to let go physical and process jobs. This wont be sustainable.

US has disproportionate large share of Worlds capital and number of MNC's, If other countries stop importing and encouraging local production and services then how will US companies survive? Profit that MNC's create worldwide supports corporate functions and investors income in US.

Only sustainable solution for job creation is to work towards increasing global jobs pie and attain global optimum.

However Governments are always tempted to achieve country level optimum by giving incentives for creating the jobs in their country at the expense of the jobs in other countries ( offshoring, reverse onshoring, local production, tariff barriers, tax incentives etc)

If all countries follow local optimum, this will self stabilize at new inefficient solution where majority is worse-off.

Solution is to increase the Global job pie, rather than fight for additional share of existing job pie by creating artificial incentives.

I believe, the long term solution is to create large R&D in further new areas and increase share of R&D employment in total global employment. Once new technologies become viable, market will take care of creating additional jobs in downstream- manufacturing, agriculture, infrastructure and services.