Mast madness
Now of course we are all increasingly dependent on our mobile telephones which are a central part of modern life.
Did you know that mobile telephone operators have a Code of Best Practice to ensure transparency in erecting mobile phone networks, to provide more information to the public and local planners and to boost the community’s role in the siting of radio base stations?
It promises;
- IMPROVED CONSULTATIONS WITH COMMUNITIES
- DETAILED CONSULTATION WITH PLANNERS
- SITE SHARING
- WORKSHOPS FOR COUNCILS
- DATABASE OF BASE STATION SITES
- COMPLIANCE WITH ICNIRP PUBLIC EXPOSURE LEVELS GUIDANCE
- ICNIRP CERTIFICATION
- PROMPT RESPONSES TO ENQUIRIES
- SUPPORT RESEARCH INTO HEALTH AND MOBILE PHONES
- STANDARD DOCUMENTATION FOR PLANNING SUBMISSIONS
Yet this code is routinely ignored. In 2003 I tried to introduce legislation to give local authorities greater powers over the erection of transmission masts. This failed.
One of the most disgraceful examples of a mobile operator behaving irresponsibly was when 02 moved a mast from the Suffolk part of Newmarket to the small Cambridgeshire bit of the town without telling anyone. To make things worse it was erected near a school.
Earlier this year 02 put up a mast in Newmarket’s Exning Road. There are now fears that Vodafone will erect another just 400 yards away. This is just a ridiculous situation.
My Parliamentary colleague, Greg Clark, recently tried to introduce a Bill which would have encouraged roaming, as conducted in other countries, and the sharing of masts between mobile phone operators. As was the case with my own piece of legislation, it is doomed to failure.
If there is a Code of Best Practice than mobile phone operators should adhere to it. Yet it is frankly not worth the paper it is written on. It is simply not good enough.
John Ward said on October 22nd, 2008 at 10:38 pm:
Slight inaccuracy there, young Sir! Not all of us depend on the things. I don’t have one, and dislike them intensely. Ironic, really, as I was the bod who drew up the licences to develop the whole thing, back in 1985, when I was responsible for all non-military radio usage development in the Radiocommunications Agency, before it was called that(!)
Perhaps one day I’ll have one, when it’s built into my watch…
John Ward said on October 22nd, 2008 at 10:44 pm:
Oh, the mast business is crazy, I do agree. My eight years on our local Council showed just how nonsensical this whole area is. Despite the requirement to investigate mast sharing, for example, there was no end of excuses why this “couldn’t be done” on just about every occasion, and these masts and their bulky cabinets have proliferated.
Perhaps if these very rich companies were to invest in developing non-etheric technologies, instead of merely bloating out the old nineteenth-century radio methodology, they could (indeed should) find a way to avoid needing any masts or cabinets ever again, just one transceiving station for the entire planet.
That, though, would need innovation, which is sadly lacking in today’s society, which is why people still go around in boxes on wheels. How medieval is that?