| The Swedish company helped to set up four base stations for mobile networks in India that run on fish oil and waste vegetable oil produced by local restaurants, Stockholm-based Ericsson said on Thursday in a statement. The stations, in the state of Maharashtra, were created with Idea Cellular, an Indian mobile-phone company, Ericsson said. |
| "We are pleased to pioneer biofuel into the telecom industry," Mats Granryd, the head of Ericsson India, said in the statement. "Solutions to solve the power challenges associated with expanding rural coverage will help operators reach people beyond the electricity grid.'' |
| The four stations bring mobile connectivity to rural areas that previously had no wireless network and had unreliable power supplies. Ericsson aims to grow in emerging markets such as India and China, and this month signed an agreement with China Mobile to expand coverage in the world's most populous nation. |
| Idea Cellular's networks have more than 14.5 million customers in India, or 8.5 per cent of the market. The company, controlled by billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla, completed India's largest initial share sale this year. |
| India had 171.2 million mobile-phone users at the end of April, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said on May 24. |
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