Europe to get standard mobile phone charger: EU

[garlad]

Makes sense!! Too many chargers lying around my house and none seem to work!

http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1246289522.38/

(BRUSSELS) - The mobile phone industry on Monday agreed to roll out a new pan-European standard phone charger from next year that supporters hope will be taken up around the world.

The agreement came after after threats of legally binding EU rules.

The European Commission has said it is eager to do away with the plethora of charger models, which create a headache for users as well as generating several thousand tons of waste each year.

Following the agreement, the first inter-changeable mobile phones and chargers are due to hit the market next year, the European Union's executive arm said.

The new standard is to be based on the micro USB (universal serial bus) connector that most mobile phones capable of transmitting data already have for connecting to a computer.

While most mobile phones already such data transmitting connectors, in the future they will also be used to charge up a phone's battery.

The commission estimated that it would take about three years for most mobile phones to be replaced with products that use the new standard once the new models become available next year.

"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."

The companies that signed the agreement cover 90 percent of the market with industry leaders including Apple, LG, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Qualcomm, Research in Motion (RIM), Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Texas Instruments.

Verheugen was hopeful that the new European standard would eventually create a global trend.

"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," he told a news conference.

He said that the same technology could be applied to other products such as computers and cameras, but that the commission had targetted the mobile industry first in order to go faster.

The BEUC European consumer association welcomed the agreement, but was uneasy with the fact that it was purely voluntary, noting that past such agreements were not honoured.

"We very much welcome (the agreement) but it has to be ensured that it is put in place. As a voluntary agreement, we cannot be sure," a BEUC telecoms expert said.