Sometime around the middle of next year, mobile phone users across Europe will be able to recharge their phone batteries using a standard mobile phone charger with a connection plug based on Micro USB connection.
The European Commission is keen to get rid of different versions of mobile phone chargers, and when you think about it there are quite a few of them, in favour of one standard model which will not only be more convenient for us but will help comply with new European Union rules on waste too.
At the moment old mobile phone chargers that are no longer required when people upgrade or buy a new phone results in tons of waste year after year.
“In the European Union market alone, there are about 185 million new mobile phones a year,” EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen said.
Of course a standard charger will also mean we will no longer have to keep multiple chargers for different phones and it would certainly makes it easier to borrow a charger should we misplace our own or forget to take it with us.
“I am very pleased that industry has found an agreement, which will make life much simpler for consumers,” EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen said.
“They will be able to charge mobile phones anywhere from the new common charger. This also means considerably less electronic waste, because people will no longer have to throw away chargers when buying new phones.”
A total of ten mobile phone companies, which represent around ninety percent of the mobile phone market in the European Union, have signed up to the “Memorandum of Understanding” agreement so far and include Sony Ericsson, Texas Instruments, Nokia, LG, Motorola, NEC, Qualcomm, RIM, Samsung and Apple.
The new standard charger will only apply to “data enabled” phones and not standard mobiles but sales of so called SmartPhones are well and truly on the rise.
The agreement only applies to Europe to start with but it is hoped that eventually it will be adopted on a worldwide basis.
“We are assuming that this new European standard will have a knock on effect globally and that manufacturers won’t be just doing this on the European market, but will be doing this on other markets with Europe,” Verheugen said.
“On principle, you would never have to buy a new charger again”.
Hey I’m up for that.
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