acquisition. Unfortunately, the 1.6 billion population of the world do not have this luxury. In today's world access information is essential for economic growth, yet a study by Deloitte commissioned by the GSMA (GSM Association) suggests that access rates in developing countries often lag more than 20 years behind those in the developed world [12]. To address this challenge, GSMA launched a program called Green Power for Mobile (GPM) program in September 2008 to "extend mobile beyond the grid." In just over a year reasonable activities have to take place across the world to make it a reality. Thus, the mobile industry is in a great position to reduce the digital divide between developed and developing nations. 13.6.1 Key Challenges Some of the key challenges associated with mobile operators in providing coverage in off-grid or unreliable grid power locations are: High cost of diesel generators Operational Expenditure (OPEX) associate with diesel generators High cost of fueling High cost of fuel transportation to remote or underserved areas Sizeable carbon emissions per base station Lack of mobile battery charging solutions 13.6.2 Potential Alternatives Solar and wind technologies (including solar and wind hybrids) are currently the most attractive tech- nologies for powering base stations. Due to the abundance of sun, commoditization of solar modules, ease of planning and low running costs, solar is the favored choice for green power solutions in many regions for small load sites (<2 kW). However, due to the fact that CAPEX scales proportionately with load, solar solutions are less economically attractive for larger sites. At standard base station loads, the installed cost of wind technology is more economically viable than for an equivalent solar system due to a lower basic equipment cost. However, variability in wind speeds across the globe means that wind only solutions are likely to be restricted to locations such as coastal mountainous regions where wind is Next Generation Mobile Communications Ecosystem ab