Responding to safety concerns over electromagnetic waves, the National Communications Commission (NCC) launched a Web site allowing people to locate the locations of base stations in their neighborhood. NCC spokesperson Lee Ta-sung (李大嵩) said yesterday that the commission had spent two years building the site.
The commission will add an geographic information system (GIS) and conduct tests trials before making the site available to the public, he said.
“We hope to launch the site either at the end of May or at the beginning of June,” Lee said.
We created the site because people have a right to know what’s around them, including base stations, he said. It is also a way for the commission to better manage the base stations.
The commission said the Web site would be separate from its home page. The interface will be similar to that used on Google Maps, where users click on certain location and zoom in to see more details.
The site enables the public to see any base station emitting electromagnetic waves, including those used by radio stations, for mobile phones and those that will be used to provide the worldwide inter-operability for microwave access (WiMAX) service.
Users will be able to see where each base station is located in their neighborhood and by clicking on a station they will obtain information about its owner, including frequencies, licenses and wattage at the base station. The commission said that while the information would not include the address of the base station, surrounding streets and roads would be available.
In creating the site, the commission used models set by the US Federal Communications Commission and Ofcom in the UK.
The entire project cost NT$4 million (US$114,000).
Lee said the commission was also encouraging telecom carriers to avoid camouflaging base stations. The commission also asked carriers to install the base stations in a more orderly manner to make them less threatening.
Asked if providing information about base stations would make them easy targets for environmentalists, Lee said there were no concerns.
“We believe it is necessary to disclose information,” he said, adding that the commission would hold educational sessions on electromagnetic waves this year to dissipate such concerns.
Commission statistics showed there are 60,000 registered base stations nationwide.
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