The mobile phone network manufacturers are very aware that the public is worried about the possible dangers of mobile phones, and is trying to cover its tracks. Many of the box-shaped ‘microcell’ mobile phone base stations mounted on walls and lamp posts continuously irradiate the public with levels of microwaves as high as those emitted by the free-standing antennae mounted on church spires and school roofs ('macrocell' base stations). ‘Microcell’ base stations are typically positioned between three and six metres above the ground and are often disguised, e.g. as burglar alarms.

An NRPB (National Radiation Protection Board*) survey found that many of the ‘microcell’ base stations tested exposed the public to microwave fields as strong as five volts per metre (5V/m). Their report also noted that “around 6% were radiating more than five watts”. The mobile network operators have also sometimes installed high-power ‘macrocell’ base stations at 'microcell' sites. Their antennae often face domestic bedrooms and living rooms just across the street, causing the highest microwave irradiation of people: often between three and ten volts per metre - far higher levels of microwaves than needed for the operation of a mobile phone network.

Because microcell base stations blend in with the street and are less than ten metres above the ground, they do not require any planning permission or council consultation thanks to a ‘de minimus’ loophole in planning law. The term ‘de minimis’ comes from the Latin legal phrase ‘De minimis non curat lex’, which means ‘The law does not care about very small matters’. This shows official contempt for the widespread public concern about the potential adverse health effects. For most of us, being irradiated is not “a very small matter”. The mobile network operators have taken full advantage of the loophole. In one square quarter-of-a-mile in Soho, for instance, there are now 150 mobile phone base stations, 94 of which are less than 10 metres above the ground.

Although the UK Government has agreed to a precautionary approach in this matter, the maximum safe exposure levels they permit are nearly a hundred times higher than the 0.6V/m precautionary principle ceiling recommended by Austria’s 1998 Salzburg Resolution and nearly fifty times the 1.2 - 2.5V/m limits adopted in Paris.

'Volts per metre' is not a unit with which most people are familiar. If the Salzburg precautionary ceiling of 0.6V/m is seen in terms of risk as 'equivalent to' a 30mph vehicle speed limit in residential areas, the Government 58V/m limit is obviously not at all precautionary but rather the equivalent of doing 2,847 miles per hour in a residential area. Reckless might be a better description. Exposures from 'microcell base stations' recorded in the survey show that many city dwellers are being continually exposed to risks equivalent to cars driving between 147 and 500mph in built up areas.

Ed.- (i) Powerwatch has devised an index which gives a quick rule-of-thumb means of assessing base stations to check that the radiation is as low as possible.
Visit website: www.powerwatch.org.uk

(ii) By the end of 2004 the mobile service operators had registered 5,008 such base stations. There were almost certainly many more unregistered stations at that time (they did not and still do not require planning permission), and there will certainly be considerably more (registered and unregistered) by now.

* On 1 April 2005 the National Radiological Protection Board merged with the UK's Health Protection Agency, forming its new Radiation Protection Division. The Division continues to operate from the old NRPB headquarters at Chilton in Oxfordshire. Its contact details are now: Health Protection Agency, Radiation Protection Division, Chilton, Didcot OX11 0RQ Tel.: 01235 831600 email: rpd@hpa-rp.org.uk