The Health Implications Of Living Close To Telecommunication Network Mast

I do a lot of my research using my mobile device. There are so many names given to this small device. Some people call them a mobile phone, handset, global system for mobile communication (G.S.M) etc. However, with the benefits came some reservations. These devices operate using electricity, resistors, conductors, magnets, liquids, and some other pieces of technology. When a voltage containing some level of current flow past a magnet, there occurs a field containing rays. These rays referred to as radio frequency (R.F) are to remain within the device if not for the fact that the manufacturers want the device to communicate with another somewhere else. This leads to radiation of these rays. The rays are the only means to communicate with the network base station rays.

Manufacturers produce devices that emit rays that are low pegging the maximum amount of radiation at some value believe to be the safe limit for humans. These values are within safe limits when the device is used according to the manufacturer’s instruction. A high dose of this ray can cause cataract. Little has been said of mobile devices that are old, which independent research has shown to increase in quantity of radiations. However, since mobile phones are personal properties, a user who is scared can decide not to use them or how frequent to depend on it. This cannot be said of network mast (base station) located in residential areas.
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The federal government of Nigeria gave guidelines to network providers on the distance between network mast and residential buildings. A flaw in the law did not specify the distance between two masts. We will talk about this later on. Network companies keep passing the information that these masts are safe. This was what the Nigerian Communications Commission (N.C.C) is making the public believe even though another organisation has come out to express worry as to how this equipment can cause problems to residents in the area. This almost led to an online war between these two organisations.
Radiations are of different types. Some are highly energetic and can cause damage if a person is exposed to a toxic level in a short time. Others have the ability to accumulate small doses over time to cause damage years later. Both types can cause cancer or mutation.
Similar to mobile phones, these masts contains all the elements that can generate rays. They are electricity, magnets, resistors, conductors, liquids etc. The electric engine generating set in most of these masts, as the government power supply is not stable, generates the electricity. This generating set emits dangerous gas known as carbon monoxide. The antennas consist of the other components. The nature of rays or radiation coming from these masts is electromagnetic field (E.M.F) rays.
EMF rays are the signals received by mobile phones and are not dangerous to the health of people around in controlled laboratory results. They are non-ionizing radiations and not energetic to cause tissue damage like x-rays. Previous experiments on health implication of rays from network base station have shown them to be safe. However, there is a strong but to that. Recent research by independent persons has shown that there is a link between a network mast and sleep disorders and other health hazards.

Telecommunication network mast

Research On The Hazard Of Network Mast

The previous experiments on this topic adopted a very poor research method. A survey using mostly questionnaires are distributed to respondents living in the area. Their answers are analysed and published. Most of the survey tends to investigate the health condition of the people living in the area before the mast was mounted and some years later. The answers fell into both categories. This is a poor way of analyzing the real-life effect of these masts.
Recent research using method that is more specific have proven network mast to be very dangerous. The method employed was to conduct blood analysis on individuals selected before the mast was mounted. Their blood where analysed some few months after mounting the mast about some distance from their location. Another blood sample was taken two years later. The blood sample result where compared.
The individuals where ask using questionnaire any usual feeling. They complain of having difficulty in sleeping day and night. The blood sample result showed that the two enzymes responsible for night and daytime sleep depreciated in the majority of the individuals. Other parameters studied shown a correlation between the mast and reduce heath of the people. If within a space of two years, the effect was detected in their blood sample means it will be disaster years later.
Other experiments were on analysis of the recent trend in disease of areas with new network mast. One showed a four-time fold increase in cancer cases in the area.
However, we must not fail to mention the dangerous gas coming out from electric engine generating sets. This gas commonly known as carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas that is odorless, tasteless, and colorless. A generating set that is switch on all day can cause a saturated environment of carbon monoxide, which may lead to signs and symptoms of the gas poisoning.
There are different antennas with different functions in a network mast. They radiate rays at different level. general packet radio service (G.P.R.S), universal mobile telecommunications system (U.T.M.S) and enhanced data rates for GSM evolution (E.D.G.E) are believed to radiate lesser rays than that of the third generation mobile telephony (3G) antenna. However, one organisation was very adamant that the new fourth generation mobile telephony long-term evolution (4G L.T.E) network antenna might pose more risk as they emit more of this EMF.
There are about 76 million phones using 22, 000 base stations. The distance between one another may be so close that the residents in the area will receive double fold the radiation. Some interactions between these base stations can increase if they are from different companies or even same. There is no research work on this yet from my little research. This could pose very great dangers for residents, as this is very common in towns and cities.
The worst case I have seen is a compound with a mast surrounded with trees. The trees may serve as shade preventing the escape of this poisonous gas into the atmosphere. The effects may accumulate over time and cause health implications for the residents.
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The fear of this network mast is not only in Nigeria. The United States of America(U.S.A) government is finding it difficult to convince its citizens that these masts are safe. The reason they usually give is that mast has been with us for years in the form of Television, radio and other mast types, which were not dangerous. The belief of the people is that since they are new, the health effect may take a long time before it will begin to manifest. The battle to prove this is still on.
With contradictory research like this, it is important that the World Health Organisation (W.H.O) step in to sponsor a one-time research into this, and put end to this. This is because different individuals have taken laws into their hands by bringing down network mast in some location like United Kingdom (U.K) for fear of the unknown.
As more and more sophisticated antennas are being added to these mast, the possibility of an increase in radiation cannot be ruled out. However, we hope that the advance in technology will lead to the use of better antennas with low radiations.
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