W.E.E.P. News
Wireless Electrical and Electromagnetic Pollution News
30 June 2010
Obama moves to double airwaves for wireless devices
Memorandum signed Monday is intended to create jobs and boost investment in mobile phone market
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/feed/sc-biz-0629-broadband--20100628,0,5655498.story
By Jennifer Martinez, Tribune Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON —
— President Barack Obama signed a memorandum Monday that would double the amount of airwaves available for wireless devices over the next 10 years, a move intended to create jobs and boost investment in the mobile phone market.
The availability of more wireless spectrum would allow faster delivery of data and video onto smart phones and other next-generation devices.
The memorandum launches an effort to make available over the next 10 years 500 megahertz of government and commercial spectrum, which mirrors a recommendation by the Federal Communications Commission in its National Broadband Plan released in March. In the nation's largest cities, local TV stations use about 150 megahertz, according to the National Broadband Plan.
"The initiatives endorsed today will spur economic growth, promote private investment, and drive U.S. global leadership in broadband innovation. Spectrum is the oxygen of wireless, and the future of our mobile economy depends on spectrum recovery and smart spectrum policies," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said.
Wireless telecommunications companies would be able to acquire some of this public spectrum in a government auction. Some of the revenue would be used to create a nationwide public safety network that is intended to keep communications running in an emergency, which was a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission.
With the rising popularity of smart phones, netbooks and other wireless devices, the amount of data sent over wireless networks continues to grow. As a result, wireless phone companies need more spectrum to accommodate the glut of data and avoid a "spectrum crunch," White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers said.
"In recent years, the amount of information flowing over some wireless networks has grown at over 250 percent per year," Summers said in a speech Monday. "There is no policy step more important for the digital infrastructure than assuring that scarce spectrum is efficiently allocated."
Wireless companies, including AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp., lauded the administration's plan, saying it will help them manage the deluge of data traveling across their networks. Jim Cicconi, a senior executive vice president at AT&T, called the move "both encouraging and timely."
"At AT&T, we are already dealing with phenomenal increases in mobile broadband use — a whopping 5,000 percent over the last three years," Cicconi said.
Broadcasters, however, weren't as enthusiastic. The government will look to local TV broadcast stations to give up some of their airwaves, which they have opposed. The FCC has called for local broadcasters to make 120 megahertz of their spectrum available.
The broadcasters said they have already returned a large chunk of spectrum that was auctioned to wireless providers.
"We appreciate FCC assurances that further reclamation of broadcast television spectrum will be completely voluntary, and we're convinced that America can have both the finest broadband and broadcasting system in the world without jeopardizing the future of free and local TV service to tens of millions of viewers," said Dennis Wharton, executive vice president of the National Association of Broadcasters.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Mobile Phone Mania: A Techno Addiction
Sheikh M Ashraf
Twenty six and half years elapsed, when the first commercial wireless call was made and it was Oct. 13, 1983, at Soldier Field, where Ameritech Mobile, now part of Verizon Wireless, made the call from a Motorola DynaTAC 8000X known as the "brick" phone. The phone priced $3,995, was 13 inches long, and weighed 1.75 pounds.
Although with the advent of mobile phones world has become quite small and easily accessible. However mobile phones have always been instigating debates among the people about their merits and demerits.
The mobile phones have numerous uses ranging from business work, means for entertainment, research work, and ensuring security. Simultaneously, they have disadvantages too, like erosion of privacy, unnecessary wastage of money, talking on mobile phones while driving and emission of invisible radiation from the handsets which is allegedly harmful for health. It is argued by various sections of people for the advantages of mobile phones which outweigh their disadvantages.
Various scholars have projected that a mobile phone user seems quite entertained by the sound of his or her own voice, which apparently is reason enough to place a call. Sometimes these solipsistic people are just talking to a dial tone, just to make themselves look important. It is estimated that for a commoner, 90% calls are completely unnecessary, and another 5% are less than urgent and could wait until later. There are also plenty of narcissistic pinheads who can't make a trip to a grocery store, to a movie, to mosque/other religious place, or anywhere else without hearing themselves talk on the phone.
Some of them can't even sit through a traffic light without placing a call. In the worst case, there are those self-important egotists who do not and will not turn off their phones at a places where switching off their mobiles is mandatory. Beside the annoyance to the people around the mobile phone user, the widespread use of mobile phones has had another adverse effect: it is quite naive to expect complete privacy when talking on the phone. The chances are pretty good that your phone conversations are just between you and the person you called, but there are no guarantees. In USA people spend, on average, about seven hours a month talking on their cell phones, which projected more for Indian subcontinent, implying that mobile phones encouraged us to connect individually but disconnect socially. The main feature of mobile phones is instant access which makes them the most exclusive devices for communication.
Now people can make voice or VDO call or send text messages to anyone anytime from almost anywhere at a cheap rate using mobile phones. Besides this, with the aid of the latest WAP technology users can surf the internet, send emails and chat with other people at a low cost.
According to a research released on 13th February, 2007 from the Mobile Entertainment Forum and Ovum, 20% of UK subscribers search internet via mobile phones. Mobile phones are lessening the pressure of the business and office work too. These days, the latest mobile phones are powered with Microsoft Office application for viewing and editing various types of files including Word, PDF, and Excel etc easing the office and business work. Moreover, in this modern world of advanced communication loads of business deals are made through mobile phone conferences.
As per the research done by psychiatrists world over, it is presumed that effects of mobile phones on users' health are not encouraging, (study conducted by Sergio Chaparro, instructor at Rutgers University, New Jersey). In one assignment, 220 students were asked to turn off their cell phones for three days. Shockingly, only three could do it. The reason: the others panicked to do so, as they were afraid of feeling incomplete without their phones.
According to the eighth annual Lemelson-MIT Invention Index report, a study involving new inventions and innovations, nearly 30 per cent of subjects involving those of, business executives, teenagers, IT professionals, banker, stay-at-home moms; chose the cell phone as the invention they most hated but could not live without it. They all love their phones.
Simultaneously there should be difference between the love and addiction, here needle is swinging towards the mobile phone dependency and addiction.
And it is on the rise, so much so that researchers in Britain found that their subjects referred to the phone as "an essential item, an extension of self".
As per the comments of Raghav Ranade, one of the famous, practicing psychiatrist from Mumbai, "Emotional dependency on cell phones is common nowadays. The problem with this is there is a backlash and fury against the phones when they refuse to do what users want them to. This could be a form of cell phone rage." Another Psychiatrist Snehita Paun from New Delhi agrees that cell phones encourage a 'hurry-up, I-want-it-now' attitude in users". This can lead to a lot of distress when the gratification is not instant. It is like you not wanting to wait until January 1 for your New Year gift and wanting it now instead," she says. Cell phone rage is the annoyance, irritation and frustration that users experience when they feel controlled by the very devices they can't do without.
Any one who uses cell phones a lot, or is surrounded by people who do, runs a risk of being affected.
Another study published in the December 2007, issue of the Journal of Family and Marriage states that increasing use of mobile phones and pagers could be linked to a decrease in family satisfaction and increased stress over a two-year period.
This is because phones let people bring their work home and take personal issues to work. Women seem to be the ones more affected. All these instances can eventually lead to cases of mobile phone rage, especially when the build up occurs quickly. Add to this the fact that cell phones make you an easy target for bullies who can send you anonymous, threatening messages. Joseph Tecce, an associate professor of psychology at Boston college, has conducted a lot of research in the area of phobias and addictions. He says, "Like substance abuse, cell phone usage can lead to several problems.
People who instantly reach for the cell phone every time they feel uneasy or anxious about a problem as they are relying too much on it." This behavior not only reduces self-reliance, but also paves the way for cell phone rage because it takes away control of one's behavior and places it in the hands of an inanimate object known for its inconsistency.
How to respond a pleasurable or anonymous call: when a person is driving, a Judge concluding for a decision, a doctor examining a case to reach to a diagnosis, or involved in surgical procedure, an official critically analyzing and finalizing an important data, a person is involved in religious activities, or is before a boss who hates attention diversion, flying a plane, etc. It's really very distracting to be praying and suddenly hear techno music of mobile phone, or vibration. Is actively jamming mobile phone signals the answer? possibility of which seems at large, keeping enormous dimensions in mind.
It may prove beneficial if mobile phone jamming should be permitted for all drivers, schools, libraries, offices where critical official work is done, hospitals, mosques/other religious places and museums.
Since so many people have been annoyed and inconvenienced by the ubiquitous abuse of cell phones, new innovation would lead to simple solutions, and in many other countries, the solution is the portable cell phone jammer. The jammer sends out a blanket of noise in the same frequency range as the cell phone, and by raising the noise floor, makes it impossible for the phone to stay connected. The cell phone user doesn't know the cause of the interruption, in most cases, and just puts off the conversation until later.
In various countries, museums and restaurants use full-time cellular blocking, because, as many people around just won't cooperate and turn their phones off.
Jamming is only permitted in countries where the overall benefit to society is more important than some individual's hurt feelings. So, the use of a cell phone jammer may be illegal, yet there are those who are so irritated by mobile phone addicts that they don't mind taking the risk of operating outside the law for a few seconds at a time in order to cut off someone else's conversation, especially when that conversation seems to go on and on, and seems to get louder and more frivolous with every passing minute. The science of jamming a cell phone are actually quite simple. Mobile phones operate by sending signals along a range of the electromagnetic spectrum reserved for their use. All a cell-phone jamming device needs to do is broadcast a signal on those same frequencies, and it will interfere with any devices trying to transmit in that range. The phone's screen will simply indicate that no signal is available. A pair of US inventors are bringing to market a computerized car key that prevents people from chatting on mobile telephones or sending text messages while driving. This Key2SafeDriving adds to a trend of using technology to thwart speeding, drunken driving, and other risky behavior proven to ramp-up the odds of crashing.
Conclusion: Mobile phone addiction is on rise, as stated above, putting the people theoretically at increased risk of health hazards along with psychic effects like cell phone rage. Jamming of mobile phones at particular places could help to improve the work culture, reduce the risks involved apart from avoiding the money, time, and resource wastage.
Sheikh M Ashraf is Registrar in Pediatrics, SKIMS Medical College, Bemina Srinagar
He can be reached at:: aashraf_ 05@yahoo.co.in
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http://www.next-up.org/France/Rodger.php#1
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Definitive German study
Toronto Public Health,
You must read the attached recent study. It overcomes purported methodological inadequacies attributed to prior studies, re the dangers of proximity to cell base stations. Statistical significance is carefully demonstrated, sample size is important, dosimetry superior to prior study, selection bias made irrelevant, multiple controls employed, etc. It fully confirms, as indicated in its discussion, what the WHO -- and all relying on it, like HC -- reject, supposedly methodologically inadequate studies condemning current standards of public exposure such as found in "Safety" Code 6.
I can summarize in English for you. This is an urgent must read, after which it is time to act decisively and quickly. It is not possible to claim scientific inadequacy any longer for those begging in the name of public health and safety to shut down cell base stations or drastically reduce their output, regardless of retention of functionality. The '07 Bioinitiative-suggested test levels are now thought to be too high even, as reported from an '09 conference in Norway.
The report concludes that the German standards, similar to our dangerous own, are invalid, citing voluminous learned literature already known even to the industry. It recommends a six-month shutdown of cell masts in the town studied, to further confirm symptom correlation. The further from transmitters, the lesser the health complaints, clear as can be.
What more evidence a public health agency can need to act boldly is not possible to imagine.
Daryl
- recent study
- local government & medical practitioners' participation
- many symptoms surveyed
- symptoms grouped for comparison purposes
- two control symptoms
- four sectors at increasing radii from cell base station
- sectoral average V/m provided
- fifth distant low exposure zone as control
- demographic match to general population
- statistical comparisons
- satisfactory response rate
- graphs and tables
- lengthy bibliography
- criticism of useless official study
- honest claim re DECT phones
- etc
Web site www.weepinitiative.org e-mail contactweep@weepinitiative.org
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