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TETRA WORLD CONGRESS 2001 IN NICESUMMARY OF PRESENTATION BY BRENDA McALLHow can users’ concerns regarding interference and health and safety be overcome? Learning from the UK experience
Context The alleged risks to health have provoked a lot of media coverage, and some vigorous campaigns opposing installation of TETRA base stations. In many respects attitudes to TETRA mirror those which have existed for some time towards the mobile network operators in general. They have come in for a lot of criticism when rolling out their networks. As a result we have seen a tightening of UK planning regulations, and the industry making 10 commitments to Government – notably to consult and communicate better with local communities on choice of sites, and to share sites with other operators where this is possible. The media coverage has been rather sensational with emotive language – words like risk, danger, hazard, alarm, and radiation. Scare stories like this are opportunities for media looking to increase circulation. And that means it is easy for vocal campaigners and protestors to make quite an impact with the media. TETRA issues compared with 3G Firstly - there is a contrast between a capacity-based system as for 3G rollout, where site sharing is often desirable, and where some operators have already agreed to collaborate in rolling out infrastructure, not least for economic reasons and a coverage based system like Airwave, where the customer has quite specific coverage requirements. This means that the base stations need to be sited in locations which will deliver that coverage, often limiting the opportunity for site sharing, or for installing the base stations well away from residential areas, areas of natural beauty and other places likely to cause public concern. Secondly there is the “17Hz” issue. The question of whether TETRA base stations and terminals/handsets pulse at frequencies close to those which are hypothesized to cause calcium efflux from the brain and possible affect nervous functions. Suffice it to say that the NRPB has given a very clear statement that TETRA base stations do not pulse. Unfortunately this is not always believed by opponents to base station siting. The final point of difference is that we choose to buy a mobile phone, and we may or may not be concerned about SARs - Specific Absorption Rate values, which are now available to us when we select a handset. More likely we are looking at the features available, the choice of tariff packages, whether the handset is ‘cool’ and so on. But it is a matter of personal choice. But the end users of systems like Airwave – for example policemen on the beat – have no choice about whether to use the technology or what sort of terminal to have. This is prescribed for them by somebody else. So communicating the full picture to these users is hugely important. Communications Climate The climate in the UK at the moment – perhaps as elsewhere - could be described as anti-Government, anti-corporate, anti capitalist. There is a lack of trust among the general public of big institutions, and indeed of science (or at least how science has been used). There is a long list of things that cause people to worry, and radio frequency emissions are on that list. Some of us might think this sort of concern is irrational, especially when one contrasts it with the risks of driving a car daily. But industry needs to understand and accept that the concern exists in the minds of at least some of the public. So it needs to be dealt with through the way the industry behaves, and the way it communicates. Given this context, it is unrealistic of industry to expect the technology to be welcomed because of what it can do. Instead it is treated with suspicion because of what it might do. So there is an enormous and difficult communications job to be done, before the technology can begin to gain acceptance. And if that communications job is not done properly, acceptance may be delayed or withheld indefinitely. The press coverage uses words like ‘risk’ and ‘hazard.’ For example, the press says that “some scientists” believe that emissions from TETRA technology can “significantly impact brain tissue”. The public should be asking just who these scientists are and whether and where their work has been published, not just accept what is being said. But that does not always happen. So there a huge task to encourage the media to adopt a more measured and more objective reporting stance on the TETRA issue, so that the public has full access to the true scientific picture and there can be informed, rigorous debate. This task is made more difficult by the fact that, for many people, those areas of reality that are felt to be “safe” are dwindling fast. Almost everything seems to have an associated risk, from eating salmon to the emissions from microwave ovens, from the MMR triple vaccine to the putative links between dental fillings and brain disease. And the view on risks change – one day red wine is bad for you and the next it is good for you. These messages are confusing because science is complex and inconclusive, because scientific method is iterative, because special interest groups exist, and because everyone along the supply chain has his or her own agenda. Perceived risks And then, on top of all this, you have to take account of the “dread factors”. Dread factors are a whole range of negative responses that can be provoked by the introduction of new technologies. They include a sense of powerless, a sense that those responsible are untrustworthy, a sense of unfamiliarity. These feelings are quite visceral and certain stimuli are guaranteed to awake them – the sense, for example, that children or future generations are at risk. It is into this mass of confusion, anxiety and uncertainty that any message about the benefits and possibilities of TETRA technology on the one hand, or the health and safety issues on the other, is dropped. So the most serious mistake industry could make would be to fail to take such concerns seriously. So having the facts is absolutely crucial, which is why we need more robust, high quality, independent, peer-reviewed research. The advantages offered by the Airwave service seem to count for little – in essence everyone wants better emergency services, and hence better communication systems for the emergency services, but no-one wants a base station in their back yard or in their village. There is a formal planning consultation process on base station siting, but it is not always sufficiently transparent to the public and it does not mean that people will feel that they have been properly consulted. Risk Communication So how should the facts and the surrounding context be communicated? There are a number of things NOT to do:
There is another way of planning and managing communication on “risk”. The principles are:
So to do things better the industry needs to:
As TETRA technology is deployed everyone involved should accept that they have a mission to inform and explain as well as a mission to sell. end
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