Cell Phone Tower Paranoia
Came home last night to a flier stuffed into my mailbox regarding a supposed overbuild of cell phone towers in the neighborhood and the need for the community to stand together to oppose new cell sites. Never mind that there are plenty of dead zones, including my house. It appears that T-Mobile wants to put a cellphone tower at a local YMCA and one resident has decided to organize an opposition based on a belief of growing “radiation” danger.
I’m an engineer with decades of experience in wired and wireless communication systems, and I know that this is mostly fear-mongering based on junk science and anecdotes about individual cancer cases. Not to mention the crazy talk. Worse, to the extent that there IS a danger from cell radiation, it is clearly from too few cell towers, not too many.
The dangerous cell transmitter is the one next to your brain, not the one hundreds or thousands of yards away. According to the inverse square law, the difference in power levels at one inch versus 100 feet is a ratio of 1.44 million to one. And most people are considerably further than 100 feet, considering the property lines and the tower height. At 1000 feet the ratio is 144 million to one. Even if the cell tower is transmitting at 1000 times the power (it usually isn’t), the ratios are still tens of thousands to one.
So, why do people talk about cancer and cell phones? Because there is some evidence that holding a cell phone next to your brain can be harmful if the cell phone is transmitting at max power for a long time. Problem is that this only happens when you are far from a cell tower (for the same reason you have to YELL to be heard far away). And the most likely situation where that occurs a lot is if you have crappy cell reception at home. Like me.
Which is exactly the situation that these NIMBYs are working to maintain.
Update: It turns out that the desired site was not at the local YMCA, but on a residential street. Further, the tower was not the “small installation” that I was led to believe but a fairly huge one that would have actually overhung a residence. Apparently the local residents were using every argument they could to derail this thing. Doesn’t affect what I think about the cancer-ray stuff, but T-Mobile should be ashamed of themselves poisoning the waters like this.
In the end T-Mobile bagged it, and it will be more difficult for the next company that tries to put something up in a more reasonable manner.
Ya know, last I heard, it was a federal offense to put something that is not mail into someone’s mailbox.
Comment by John Hitchcock — 8/14/2010 @ 8:07 pm
Far too many people want their cake without paying for it … it’s a systemic problem throughout our political culture.
Comment by aphrael — 8/16/2010 @ 9:04 am
I live under the power lines.
Comment by Leviticus — 8/24/2010 @ 1:11 pm
There is a legitimate role for regulating installation of wireless antennas. For example, towers can sometimes be disguised as trees, or placement of antennas can be required on existing structures if available (e.g. water towers, rooftops, et cetera) instead of building new towers. So, it’s not always a choice between a huge tower and a dead zone. Sure, a new huge tower might be the cheapest solution, but it’s not always the best.
In areas where there ate hills or mountains, wireless providers love to put new towers at the top of the hill or mountain, but then it looks like a pin cushion framed against the sky, instead of looking like “purple mountain majesties.” I’m a big fan of requiring new towers to be downhill a bit so that the skyline is not destroyed; wireless providers hate that because then they have to put up more towers to get the same coverage, but it’s doable. There’s no need for wireless transmitters to “see” each other, because each one is hardwired to the telephone grid; thus, wireless signals do not have to transmit over hilltops and mountaintops in order to eliminate dead zones.
Good regulations on antennas can protect property values by keeping a neighborhood looking good, without costing wireless providers much. If you don’t have good regulations in place before a zoning application is filed for a particular tower, then it’s often too late to stop that tower, but maybe not too late to stop other poorly designed towers.
Comment by Andrew — 9/12/2010 @ 12:34 am