The project is the second of its kind in the world, a result of collaboration between Indian operator Idea Cellular, Ericsson and the GSMA's Development Fund, aiming to help develop biofuels in rural India as a source of viable power for wireless networks.

This most recent initiative is inspired by the pioneering initiative in Nigeria undertaken by Ericsson and the GSM Association's Development Fund (GSMA), together with pan-African operator MTN, which was announced in October 2006.

The focus on rural areas stems from the fact that three-quarters of the country's more than 1 billion citizens lives in its villages, a large majority of whom are not connected to telephones and lack a reliable power supply.

The project is part of Ericsson and GSMA's objective to establish biodiesel as a dependable source of power within the telecom sector as a whole. P Balaji, Ericsson's vice president of marketing and strategy in India, says: "The initiative has two objectives - firstly, to design and roll out an energy-optimized rural network that runs on biofuels, and secondly, to stimulate the local micro-economy by providing communication services to low-income segments."

He says: "Ericsson and the GSMA Development Fund are committed to increasing the telecom industry's capacity to drive economic and social development around the world. We believe alternative energy has a crucial role to play in powering future mobile networks in India, and this initiative with Idea Cellular gives us a strong foothold in the sector.

"In order to reach the next billion users, we have to reduce the costs associated with building-out rural coverage," Balaji says. "This will enable operators to target those yet to be reached - lower-income segments in India and across the developing world - the people who will constitute a large part of the next billion."