Cellular Sites Are Not Hazardous For Human Health, PTA Declares

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) reiterated that the cellular operators’ Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) power system is under controlled and its emitted radiations do not cause hazardous effects on human health.
The regulatory body is firmed on the health compliance issues related to sector on the survey conducted recently in collaboration with Frequency Allocation Board (FAB) in Pakistan and AJ&K.
The survey was conducted with the special monitoring equipment of power emission levels from transmitters and receivers of Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) / Towers of cellular mobile companies.
The drive was carried out in Karachi, Hyderabad, Lahore, Faisalabad, Mirpur, Muzaffarabad, Peshawar, Quetta, Sibi, Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
There are more than 28,000 BTS of five cellular operators in the country.
Health Hazard Issues
Some provincial and local
health authorities raised issues regarding the increasing hazardous health effect of human lives by mushrooming cellular sites.
Particularly in Karachi and Lahore, it was observed that authorities and courts verdicts raised their objection on the installed cellular towers in residential societies, asking cellular operators to reinstall it at distant and deserted places.
The same issue was also towed by the Senates’ Standard Committee on IT and Telecom in its recent meeting.
Cellular phone operators rejected the impression outright, saying the installed BTS are tried to maintain in accordance with prescribed health standards.
PTA conducted drive clarified all doubts regarding health hazard issues might be caused by cellular operators’ BTS.
The obtained survey results suggested that the BTSes power levels do meet the standards of prescribed guidelines issued by Ministry of IT & Telecom, World Health Organization (WHO) and International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP).
Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen said the impression regarding the hazardous effects on human health caused by cellular sites’ radiation is incorrect The PTA would continuously be monitoring the emissions of radiations from towers to ensure that standards in the country, he said and added the public will be informed with the facts time by time.
Analysts Viewpoint
The emission of radiation may cause problem to human lives if their levels are high, analysts said. However, cellular operators’ majority of the deployed equipments are quite sophisticated to maintain the limit of BTS radiation emission may cause to human health.
Installation of multiple BTS or cellular towers emits high and multiplied hazardous rays that will definitely problematic for people of specific region. Therefore, cellular operators should avoid installing their BTS side by side or near to each others’ sites.
It is necessary to install cellular sites in residential areas because the BTS caters the demand of residents in using mobile phones. If BTS are set up in far-flung areas then it will be problem for mobile phone users living in specific region or area, resulting incidences of frequent call-drop, busy network and connectivity snags.