Antennae battle for community acceptance
By : Celia Barnes
In 1997, when Polska Telefonia Komorkowa (PTK) Centertel, the telecoms company behind the Idea network, was installing some of its first GSM 1800 mobile phone base stations in Warsaw, the company ran into problems in Praga.
The residents of a 15-story apartment block weren't happy about having a radio frequency-emitting base station operating from their roof.
"The people hated mobile phones," said Centertel's spokesman, Jacek Kalinowski. "They didn't like them at all. But when we gave them the possibility to buy (a mobile phone) for a discounted price, I think it is interesting that about 30% of these people bought a phone. And after that, we didn't have any problems."
But an amicable outcome isn't always the case. Idea, and Poland's two other mobile phone network companies, Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa (Era) and Polkomtel (Plus GSM), together have more than 10,000 base stations across Poland. With hundreds in Warsaw alone, they have all encountered community resistance, which often proves to be very costly.
One example was a farmer outside Warsaw who insisted the emissions from a nearby Idea base station were affecting not only his health, but that of his cows. After 16 months of fruitless negotiations and further scientific reports, Idea decided to move the tower one kilometer away.
In Mokotow, residents were angry that a new Era base station was disrupting their television reception, so Era agreed to move the tower. While in the outer Warsaw suburb of Ursus, the gmina is currently handling a case involving 50 angry residents who have banded together to fight a base station's continued operation. The same gmina is also talking with an elderly resident who believes another nearby base station is affecting her pacemaker.
"And because of that, the gmina will appoint a specialist who will check the influence of the base station," said the head of the Ursus gmina's environmental protection agency, Wieslaw Krzemien. "And if the expert's opinion is negative, then the license for the tower will be canceled."
Idea's Kalinowski estimates that of the 1,500 new base stations Idea installed last year, around 200 of them attracted some level of community concern.
Plus has had a similar experience. Plus engineer, Zofia Borska, believes they have "some sort of a problem" with about 10% of their base stations. She estimates it costs the company around 10-15% of its total capital expenditure in terms of lost revenue and also the expense of resolving these disputes, which usually involves organizing further scientific tests and opinions on the base stations, arranging community meetings, delivering information leaflets, and paying lawyer's fees.
But the main concern of these communities is health, Borska said.
"That's the official answer," she said. "But the other problem, the unofficial answer, is some people are after compensation. But when you say compensation, it usually means that you have been harmed in some way. But this isn't about harm; they want extra income. Sometimes people are jealous because we may be paying their neighbors rent to build a base station on their property."
Rents depend on the level of prices on the local market, but Borska said it could be anywhere from $100-$400 per month in rural areas to $400-$1,000 per month in cities.
Kalinowski also believes some claimants are simply trying to get money out of Idea. But like Era's public relations bureau director, Robert Niczewski, Kalinowski said the main cause of community concern is fear. People are worried that the radio frequency waves emitted by a base station will make them sick.
"Once they wake up in the morning and see a base station nearby, they say they have a pain in their heart, or another will say they are feeling bad and they might get cancer," Niczewski said.
But the bulk of research has proved otherwise. According to a 1999 study by the World Health Organization (WHO), exposure to the radio frequency (RF) fields such as those emitted by base stations are "unlikely to induce or promote cancer" or any other disease, although research is continuing.
The WHO goes on to say that RF fields can penetrate the human body, but the RF signal levels in areas of public access from base stations are far below international guidelines, typically by a factor of 100 or more. Plus, the further you are away from a base station, the weaker the RF field becomes. Base station antennas are typically about 20-30 centimeters in width and a meter in length, and they are mounted on buildings or towers at a height of 15-50 meters above ground. They are usually fenced off to stop people from getting close and also the RF beams are directed outward, so the RF field intensity directly below the antenna is low.
The RF exposure to the user of a mobile phone is far greater than to a person living near a mobile phone base station. While this has caused high levels of concern in Western Europe, prompting the three major mobile phone manufacturers Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson to put safety labels on boxes containing their products, local network operators report that Polish consumers, so far, are not worried about health concerns over mobile phone usage.
"It's just not an issue yet in Poland," said Era's Niczewski. "Poles are not even concerned with the health problems of mobile phones. In Poland, we have a problem with the base stations being installed by the operators."
Installing a base station is complex, involving many documents of approval, including one from the newly created Telecommunications Regulations Office (URT). An environmental impact study carried out by Sanepid, the government's sanitary and epidemiological institution, is also required. The head of Sanepid's construction supervision unit, Halina Nowak-Nejno, said Polish laws for RF emissions are more stringent than those specified in the EU.
"Nobody has such safe regulations as we do," said Nowak-Nejno.
She also said that if local communities protest about the building of a base station, the gmina is obliged to seek further scientific opinions either from Sanepid or a similar body.
"The worst thing is that the presidents of housing cooperatives make decisions without consulting the (apartment) inhabitants," said Nowak-Nejno. "There can be a lack of communication between them so when they see that someone is installing a tower on their building, they don't know what it is, and because they haven't been informed, they protest."
And the level of protest could increase with the commercial launch of the third generation of mobile phones in 2003. This new technology requires a denser number of base stations that could double, and perhaps triple, the total number of base stations in Poland.
Bank Handlowy telecoms analyst, Andrzej Kasperek, said one option, currently in Western Europe, is for the three operators to place their antennas on shared base stations. In Poland, Era, Idea and Plus currently operate individual networks.
"When it comes to talking about costs and huge costs then this competitive fight should be left behind and they should consider future benefits," Kasperek said. "So (cooperating) would be one way to decrease the cost of the rollout, and that means including the cost of people claiming they do not want the base station near them."
