You see them everywhere. They link you to the social scene, keep you in touch with your parents and drive your professors insane when they ring in class. They are cell phones, one of the most common pieces of technology found on college campuses. So what's the new big hype about their usage?
According to The Network World Journal, cell phone usage exploded in 1994, when 16 million Americans were subscribed to cellular phone services. By the year 2000, there were over 110 million international subscribers, and the number of users is expected to increase to 1.1 billion worldwide by the end of 2005. This means that over one-fifth of the world's population will be hooked to the device, a percentage so high that scientists have begun to explore the possible negative effects of its usage.
So why are they raising health concerns from scientists all over the world? Unfortunately, there are people who think that cell phone usage is dangerous and can cause health problems such as cancer and memory loss. Last Wednesday, Italian scientists in London found an inextricable link between the radio waves emitted from handsets and the rapid growth of cancer cells.
Researching in the National Research Council in Bologna, scientists exposed leukemia cancer cells to 48 hours of constant radio waves. The result was surprising. The radio waves initially killed the cancer cells but then made the surviving tumor cells replicate more rapidly. According to the Washington Post, however, the scientists stated that radio wave effect on normal human cells was unknown, but the new research confirms the belief that radiation can damage parts of human DNA and destroy the cell repair center, therefore making tumors more lethal.
According to the London Times, cell phones have been under careful review by many scientists for several reasons. Roger Coghill, a specialist in bio-electromagnetics, has long campaigned for the phones to carry a significant health warning.
"What is clear is that there is a syndrome associated with excessive mobile phone use," Coghill said in a recent interview with the London Times.
In a private study, Coghill found that in a survey of 500 users, 12 percent use their phones for more than 20 minutes a day, and that 1.8 percent of people surveyed use the handsets for more than two hours a day. The 1.8 percent raised several concerns, and when applied to the whole population of cell phone users in the UK, he concluded that 250,000 people are being put at risk of serious ill health.
Coghill also continued his study of cell phones in the laboratory. After exposing a sample of blood to 11.5 hours of radio waves, he found that while there were mobile phones on stand-by there, was a serious degradation of the white blood cells, which fight disease. The next day he found that there was a substantial fall in the capability of white blood cells, and after the second day only 13 percent of white blood cells were viable. Although the frequency of radio waves that Coghill used were significantly stronger than everyday cell phone usage, the long-term negative effect was quite obvious.
"We do not know exactly what the risks are of sustained exposure to mobile phone electromagnetic radiation," commented Coghill.
"Mobile phone manufacturers should have funded research into that question before they put them on the market -- if they were pharmaceutical products they would have to have been pre-tested," he said.
Despite the evidence leading Coghill to conclude cell phones were detrimental to human health, he stated that everyone who uses cell phones are not at a serious health risk. In his report published in the London Times, he stated that the general public should restrict cell phone usage to less than 10 minutes a day.
"There are some simply, virtually costless things that people can do to minimize risk," said Coghill.
"There is no reason to panic, but users should be aware of the effects of long-term cellular phone usage."
Following several reports on the effects of cell phone usage in Germany, the head of the Center For Radiation Control (CCR), Wolfram Koenig, criticized phone companies for disregarding concern about the sitting of radio wave transmission. Like Coghill, Koenig said in a recent interview with The Guardian that just because there is no conclusive proof that everyday cell phone usage causes health problems, it is still important to urge caution until scientists can dismiss possible links with ailments such as eye cancer and leukemia.
"Some people are very sensitive to radiation, which is why contact with mobile phones should be generally minimized to the greatest degree possible," he stated.
How do cell phones work? Designed as sophisticated radios, these devices contain low-power transmitters, which have two signal strengths: 0.6 watts and three watts. When the phone is turned on, it immediately identifies the system identification code (SID) in a control channel, a unique five-digit number that is assigned to each carrier by the FCC. If this procedure fails, meaning that the radio signals cannot reach a carrier, the phone knows that it cannot receive any service and consequently displays a "no-service" message. When the procedure is successful, however, and you either send or receive a call, radio waves are transmitted from the phone and picked up by the central office in your city, called the Mobile Telephone Switching Office. The MTSO then gets the call, and tries to find you by looking in its database.
After your identification number has been found, the MTSO picks a frequency pair that your phone will use in the device to receive the call. The MTSO gets in contact with your phone over the control channel to assign a compatible frequency, and once both phones in use switch to those frequencies, the call is connected. All of the communication achieved from phone to phone is done through radio waves, a common method used since the invention of radios by Nikolai Tesla in the 1880s.
Radio waves emitted from cell phones have several important properties. The wave frequency ranges from 750 to 810 megahertz, and the transmitter power is about three watts per phone. In comparison, a baby monitor's frequency averages around 49 megahertz and has a transmitter power equaling 0.25 watts per device. A television's frequency ranges from 490 to 890 megahertz, just a bit higher than a cell phone.
Due to the fact that several issues have been raised regarding cell phone usage, scientists and technicians have discovered ways to reduce exposure to the radio waves emitted from the handset. According to the Industrial Magazine, there are several options that users can take. One includes purchasing a headset, which includes radiation-minimizing protective devices. For people who use the cell while driving, there are also several mechanisms available such as internal antennae installation and devices that enable the driver to talk while having full control of the steering wheel.
Despite the warnings raised over cell phone usage, the convenience of the little device is undisputable. Instead of finding a pay phone, searching for 50 cents and using a phone used by about 10,000 other people, cell phones enable you to be more time efficient. General scientific concern still exists, however, and the overall advice reiterated by scientists has been to significantly minimize its usage until further studies can be performed.
