Telecom Equipment and Human Environmental Issues

The rapid deployment of digital mobile services across the country and speed at which they are being subscribed to, has demonstrated the importance of information and communications technology services to the people.
Although all these bring growth in the economic advancement of the country, but it comes with latent effects on the environment, such as depiction of the aesthetic of the environment among others. Against this backdrop that National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (Nesrea) had expressed reservation over what it called indiscriminate erection of telecommunications mast in various communities in the country.
According to Dr. Ngeri Benebo, director-general of the agency, telecommunications companies should conduct Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) before installing their masts.
Benebo said that EIA was necessary to ensure that the environment and human beings were not adversely affected by such installations.
She added that the agency had received complaints from some members of the public that such masts were within residential areas and urged the affected companies to take adequate measures to mitigate any negative impact.
She noted that the agency plans to hold dialogue with stakeholders to educate them on the need to comply with EIA requirement and that it will collaborate with Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to address some of the environmental issues arising from the location of masts in residential areas.
“The issue of location of masts has become a top priority for Nesrea because of the public outcry; we in the agency have decided that it should be a top issue to be discussed. In the past, what had been the topmost issue to the agency was industry effluent discharge which has contributed negatively to climate change and pollution of water bodies,” Benebo said.
According to her, it is the responsibility of the Nigerian government to ensure that the environment is conducive for human habitation.
Recently, Kaduna state high court ordered a telecom infrastructure company to decommission its mast located close to residential areas on the ground that such equipment may have health implications as expressed by the residents that brought the matter to court.
Aside unsubstantiated claims of health implications of sitting mast close to residential areas, such masts make the environment loose its beauty and to this end that they have embraced co-locations of their masts. Co-location allows operators to jointly install their base transceiver station in one location thereby reducing the number of towers as well as cost.
Mobile phones are becoming more than just business tools; they are also popular means of communication and safety aid. There are now some 76 million mobile phones in use in Nigeria meaning that have become essential parts of many peoples lives.
Also, there are around 22,000 base stations in the country. Base stations are transmitters (sometimes called masts) that use radio waves to communicate with mobile phones.
Radio waves are low-energy radiation waves that transmit through the antenna on a mobile phone. The radio waves transmit to the base station and back again. Base stations are surrounded by electromagnetic fields, an energy force that is created when electricity is generated.
As the popularity of mobile phone grows, so are concerns over the health implications of its usage and telecommunications masts. Some people opposed to telecommunications revolution would stop at every opportunity to throw the seeming unending argument on the safety of mobile phone.
But findings from 1990 till date have found that there is no general risk to the health of people living near base stations or using mobile phones. Earnest Ndukwe, former executive vice chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), said that mobile phone masts are not responsible for the symptoms of ill health some people blame them for.
Ndukwe said it would not be to the best to allow industry operators endanger the lives of the Nigerian people in the process of carrying out their telecom business. He added that for mobile technology to function effectively, the operators must have base stations around the country, noting that what the Commission has done was to set guidelines that must police the erection of such towers and masts in order to create standards.
“He pointed out that “without base stations. There is no communication. Besides, some studies have shown that mainland Britain alone has over 40,000 towers while Nigeria currently has about 22,000. The difference shows in the quality of telecommunications services available in the two countries although Nigerian operators are still installing base stations in order to improve their service.”
Telecoms operators in the country are registered and responsible members of global industry association, GSM Association (GSMA), the international Telecommunications Union (ITU) and CDMA Group. Thus all the operators benefit from a huge body of research undertaken independently by the different industry bodies.
Past and Ongoing Researches
Past and ongoing researches and studies have been conducted by the GSMA independently in collaboration with the World Health Organizations on possible effect of proximity to telecommunications installations and equipment and use of mobile phones, on human health.
These studies and researches till date have failed to show any causal link between adverse health effects and telecommunications installations and equipment, and use of mobile phones. Ericsson, the world-leading telecommunications equipment venders has also said that there is no fear in the usage of mobile phones as far as EMR emission is concerned.
Mr. Leif Edwall, country manager, Ericsson Nigeria, maintained that recent developments on the health implications of radiation from masts and mobile phone antennae are constantly in the news and the questions about proximity of end-user devices to central parts of people’s nerve systems have led scientists to investigate the potential health risks of mobile telephony in depth.
Also in 2002, Vodafone, a GSM operator in Britain had sought to install mobile telephone antenna in thetowers of the churches of St. Margaret, Hawas and Holy Trinity, Knaresborough, in the Leeds area of English. This action resulted in objection from residents within the vicinity of the churches, primarily on the grounds of health risks from living close tom antennae. Vodafone petitioned the Leeds combined court in the recent English cases of St. Margarent Hawas (No. 215 of 2002) and Holy trinity, Knarsborough (no. 233 of 2002).
The issue for determination before the court was whether radiation from a telecommunications base telecommunications base station may affect the health of humans in the vicinities of such base stations, and was resolved by determining the appropriate base station radiation emission threshold.
Vodafone’s case was based on the recommendation that the International Commission on Non Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) guidelines is the most widely accepted and should therefore be applicable. The objectors preferred the “Salzburg resolution” (a different standard0 which has lower thresholds than those of the ICNIRP guidelines.
Both Vodafone and the objectors agreed that base station radiation frequency fields are not strong enough to damage chemical bonds in the human body and are not cumulative over time. The part also agreed that base station radiations are less intense than those from a basic domestic appliance like the microwave and therefore cannot heat up or have thermal effect on a human body like such appliance could.
The court held that researches and scientific studies on human health and the relationship between exposure to radio frequency (RF) has not prove it as cause of different types of cancer, reproductive problems, congenital anomalies epilepsy, headaches and suicide etcetera.
Are Mobile Phones Safe?
There is currently no definitive scientific evidence to suggest that mobile phones pose a risk to health. And since mobile phones are a relatively new technology, that situation could change. There have been no studies into the long-term effects of using handsets, because the technology has not been around long enough.
Do Some Studies Clear Mobiles
Yes! These include a major 2006 study by the Danish institute of Cancer Epidemiology of more than 420, 000 mobile phone users, which found no evidence that mobile phone use was linked to an increased risk of cancer.
There findings echoed work by the institute of Cancer Research, also published in 2006, which concluded that mobile phone use was not associated with a greater risk of brain cancer.
And in 2007, the idea that mobile phone masts can trigger symptoms such as anxiety, nausea and tiredness in sensitive individuals was dismissed by a study led by the University of Essex.