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Mobile phone base stations are safe, needed: Cabinet

Saying that electromagnetic radiation emitted from cellphones and their base stations pose little danger to humans, the Executive Yuan yesterday approved a draft measure to encourage government agencies to offer space in their office buildings to telecommunications providers for the establishment of base stations.

"There's no clear evidence in existing scientific literature that the use of mobile phones poses a long-term health hazard," Cabinet Spokesman Chuang Suo-hang (莊碩漢) said at a press conference yesterday after the weekly closed-door Cabinet affairs meeting.

Chuang added that there also hasn't been any evidence that supports the notion that such exposure accelerates the growth of an already-existing cancer.

Citing a report put together by the Taipei Municipal Yangming Hospital in 1998, Chuang said that the electromagnetic waves sent out by a cellphone are about 0.6 watts and those by a base station are less than 500 watts, or 300 watts less than those emitted by a microwave oven.

The study also showed that an individual who talks on a cellphone for 10 minutes a day and is 10cm away from the device, receives an average of 33.15 uw per square centimeter of electromagnetic radiation from the device.

By contrast, an individual receives an average of 1.1 uw per square centimeter of electromagnetic radiation from a cellphone base station constructed on the rooftop of a building, or merely one 3,000th of the national safety level.

An individual who uses a microwave oven for 30 minutes a day and is 50cm away from the device receives an average of 0.2 uw per square centimeter of electromagnetic radiation from the device.

Taiwan, a nation of 23 million people, has a penetration rate of more than 100 percent, the highest of any other country in the Asia-Pacific region.

While the popularity of cellphones grows, telecommunications providers have found it extremely difficult to find venues for base stations mainly because media reports claim that the electromagnetic waves sent out by the stations are a health hazard.

Most base stations are typically constructed on the rooftops of residential buildings.

Last June, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications passed a resolution to allow telecommunications providers to build such facilities on the roof of the ministry's office building as well on the roofs of other buildings under the ministry's jurisdiction.

To date, 17 base stations have already been constructed and 88 more venues have been chosen.

With the approval of the draft bill yesterday, Chuang said that the Cabinet hopes to see other government agencies follow suit in the future.

"Radio communications is an important industry because it not only helps upgrade the nation's economic development as a whole but also facilitates the digitization of the country," Chuang said.
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