InnoPath Cleans the Air with 'Through the Air' Solution Delivery

Think globally. Act locally. That means instead of waiting for the world’s leaders meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark to try and come up with an agreement on climate change, enterprises can take their own steps to reduce their environmental footprint.

 

To encourage that, InnoPath Software, which makes Over-the-Air customer care applications for mobile devices, is raising awareness that its technology is part of the environmental solution, integrated with affected popular holiday images. Global warming has reduced the ice at the North Pole, the traditional home of Santa Claus, and is endangering polar bear habitats, threatening the survival of the species.

 

The firm reveals that OTA wireless device updates shrinks the indirect carbon dioxide emissions—a leading greenhouse gas source--from North American wireless firms by 33 million kilograms during 2009 by reducing subscribers’ vehicle trips. This savings resulted from InnoPath’s servers and clients providing 3.5 million successful OTA firmware updates in 2009. 

 

The green benefits come in addition to the positive impact of these updates on the operator’s operations costs and customer satisfaction. It estimated that CDMA and GSM mobile operators enjoyed an estimated $140 million of savings in 2009 thank to its solutions.

 

“While the company has traditionally been focused on keeping some green in the wallets of the operators, we are also now helping keep some green in the environment and some white at the North Pole for Santa and the polar bears with a reduction in carbon emissions,” an InnoPath spokesperson said.

 

Here is InnoPath’s methodology:

 

*          The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study ‘Optional Emissions from Commuting, Business Travel, and Product Transport’ reports that the average automobile generates .365 kg of CO2 per mile.  Given that the average round trip to the nearest phone store is 15 miles, this generates 5.47 kg per trip.  Based on its estimates, in the absence of OTA updates, 20 percent of the impacted population would venture to the store for a fix. Some 3.5 million subscribers generate 700,000 trips, or 3.8 million kg of CO2 

 

*          In the absence of OTA, five percent of phones will be returned to the operator.  Although some of these may make it into ‘B’ stock, the majority are discarded.  According to Apple’s (News - Alert) iPhone 3GS Environmental Report 50 percent of the CO2 footprint of a phone is production and transport.  A phone generates 55 kg of CO2 over its useful lifespan, and 50 percent of this equals 27.5 kg.  This multiplied by 175,000 phones (5 percent of 3.5 million) equals 4.8 million kg

 

*          OTA updates also extend the useful life of the phone on average to 30 months (or more) from the 24 month baseline due to updated support of advanced services and bug fixes.  Using the same Apple figures as above, multiplying 3.5 million phones while factoring in a 25 percent lifetime expansion results in 24 million kg of CO2 saved.  Longer lifespans for phones has a positive impact on landfills as well

 

“In a single year, the positive impact of the InnoPath solution on North America alone is therefore almost 33 million kg,” the InnoPath spokesperson said. “With a typical lump of coal weighing in at approximately 110 grams, this is enough to head off at least one lump of coal for the stocking of every man, woman and child in the United States, regardless of how naughty or nice they may be.”