At a Feb. 17, 2009, meeting in Barcelona, Spain, the Group Speciale Mobile Association (GSMA) and 17 leading mobile operators and manufacturers announced they are committed to implementing a cross-industry standard for a universal charger for new mobile phones. The aim of the initiative is to ensure the mobile industry adopts a common format for mobile phone charger connections and energy-efficient chargers, resulting in an estimated 50% reduction in standby energy consumption, the potential elimination of up to 51,000 tons of duplicate chargers and the enhancement of the customer experience by simplifying the charging of mobile phones.
The group has set an ambitious target that, by 2012, a universal charging solution (UCS) will be widely available in the market worldwide and will use Micro-USB as the common universal charging interface. The group agreed that by Jan. 1, 2012, the majority of new mobile phone models available will support a universal charging connector, and the majority of chargers shipped will meet the high efficiency targets set by the Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMPT), the industry body that developed the technical requirements behind UCS.
The group of companies that have joined the GSMA's UCS initiative include: 3 Group, AT&T, KTF, LG, mobilkom austria, Motorola, Nokia, Orange, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telenor, Telstra, T-Mobile and Vodafone — some of the largest mobile operators and manufacturers that are committed to making a universal charging solution a reality by 2012 and beyond.