CTIA Locks Horns with San Francisco on Keeping the Public in the Dark on SAR Data
In a _______ (insert your own adjective. Suggested options: decisive, bold, stupid, vengeful, piquish, insane) act yesterday, CTIA-The Wireless Association challenged the City of San Francisco on whether continuing convention business from CTIA was more important than a certain action the elected representatives of the city recently took.
So what was this action that was so worthy of this strong and decisive retaliation from the cellular establishment?
• Were they putting a new tax on cell phones?
• Were they requiring recycling of cell phones?
• Were they regulating the ugliness of cell towers?
• Were they limiting the sale of anonymous prepaid cellphones to drug dealers and gang members?
No, even worse! Here is how the San Franscisco Examiner described SF’s horrific anti-cellular establishment deed:
The city's Board of Supervisors on Tuesday gave final approval to the country's first law requiring cell phone retailers to post the amount of radiation emitted by the phones they sell.
The board voted 10-1 to approve the first-of-its-kind ordinance that requires stores to disclose each phone's specific absorption rate, or SAR.
The measure is backed by Mayor Gavin Newsom, who is expected to sign it within 10 days.
"From our perspective, this is a very reasonable and quite modest measure that will provide greater transparency and information to consumers for whom this is an area of interest or concern," said Newsom spokesman Tony Winnicker, who noted that the mayor is an iPhone user. "We're playing a role that we've often played, which is to be at the forefront of a debate."
Here are the shocking actual words of the SF action:
San Francisco Cell-Phone Radiation Ordinance -
Then, yesterday CTIA retaliated with this announcement:
CTIA-The Wireless Association® Vice President of Public Affairs John Walls issued the following statement after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved the cell phone labeling ordinance (File No. 100104):
“CTIA and the wireless industry are disappointed that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has approved the so-called 'Cell Phone Right-to-Know' ordinance. Rather than inform, the ordinance will potentially mislead consumers with point of sale requirements suggesting that some phones are 'safer' than others based on radiofrequency (RF) emissions. In fact, all phones sold legally in the U.S. must comply with the Federal Communications Commission's safety standards for RF emissions. According to the FCC, all such compliant phones are safe phones as measured by these standards. The scientific evidence does not support point of sale requirements that would suggest some compliant phones are 'safer' than other compliant phones based on RF emissions.
“While we have enjoyed bringing our three day fall show to San Francisco five times in the last seven years, which has meant we’ve brought more than 68,000 exhibitors and attendees and had an economic impact of almost $80 million to the Bay Area economy, the Board of Supervisors’ action has led us to decide to relocate our show. We are disappointed to announce that the 2010 CTIA Enterprise and Applications show in October will be the last one we have in San Francisco for the foreseeable future. We have already been contacted by several other cities that are eager to work with us and understand the tremendous benefits that wireless technology and our show can provide their area.” (CTIA does not explain that large conventions are booked several years in advance and changing the cities after booking incurs large penalties. So it appears that the non-SF venues for the next few conventions must have been decided previously.)
I was particularly fascinated by Mr. Walls’ sentence, “The scientific evidence does not support point of sale requirements that would suggest some compliant phones are 'safer' than other compliant phones based on RF emissions.” Could he please explain how scientific data could deal with “point of sale requirements”. Yes, there is no hard data that “some compliant phones are 'safer' than other compliant phones based on RF emissions.”. But there is no hard data that all cell phone exposure from handsets is safe either!
Readers might wish to review my 11/2/09 entry on this topic and the more responsible position taken by CTIA’s French counterpart, AFOM. I assume that the same physics applies in France as in CTIA’s homeland? AFOM suggests practical ways to reduce exposure such as using a Bluetooth earpiece or using your phones in area with better reception/more “bars”. Indeed, CTIA’s French counterpart even says on its website
For nonfrancophones, AFSSET is the French counterpart of EPA and OSHA and DAS is the term for SAR. Thus my unofficial translation of the header is AFSSET suggests picking a cellphone with low SAR. Shocking!!!
CTIA, does this mean you will add France to San Francisco on your list of boycotted locations for future meetings? Will CTIA staffers be able to attend any ITU or GSMA or ETSI meetings in France? Will CTIA member companies allow their staffers to travel to France on company business? Vacation?
Wired’s coverage of this news ends with these words, “Oddly, iPhone users in San Francisco may be safe, given how difficult it is to actually use the device as a phone in the city proper.”
Tekla Perry, a well known tech writer for IEEE Spectrum and a much better writer than your blogger, has written a blog piece on the SF decision describing how hard it is to get SAR information on cell phones at purchase time. Here is how she ends her essay:
The CTIA, the association that represents wireless manufacturers, is not happy about the San Francisco law, the first of its kind in the country. The CTIA says SAR information is irrelevant, and that no phones are safer than other phones. (I suppose CTIA members would rather compete on camera megapixels and apps and music capacity rather than radiation levels.) So it is going to make San Francisco pay—the CTIA is taking its annual trade show, held for the last seven years in San Francisco, elsewhere.
Wow. That’s like the cheese industry freaking out because they have to list fat grams on their labels.
But I can vote with my feet, too. The next time I buy a cell phone, I’ll be going to a retailer in San Francisco.
UPDATE
On 6/29/10 the Washington Post also wrote about CTIA’s actions. Some quotes:
The last major study done by the U.S. cellphone industry was published in 2002. Citing privacy concerns, corporations have declined to release records of heavy cellphone use to match against incidence of brain tumors.
The issue of children and cellphones has not been widely studied, even as three out of four teenagers use a cellphone. ...
Last month, 13 nations in Europe and Asia released the results of a decade-long study on long-term use. Scientists debated the results, saying the study was flawed because it relied too much on the subjects' memories of how much they used their phones.
The report, funded largely by the biggest global cellphone trade group, said that there was no conclusive link between cellphone use and cancer but that there were "suggestions" that heavy use could increase the risk of glioma. NIH issued a statement after the report's release, emphasizing that the study showed no link.
Anonymous Prepaid Cellphones in the News - Again
Will FCC and Industry Ever Address the Issue?
SpectrumTalk readers may recall that the issue of anonymous prepaid cellphones has been a recurring one. While prepaid operators generally try to obtain user registration information, we have shown that Tracfone gives you the option to “skip this step” and not bother to make up a false name - very convenient to certain demographics. We have also reported that Japan, Greece, and Mexico prohibit anonymous prepaid phones but allow prepaid phones with reasonable documentation. Now let’s add Singapore to the list. During my recent trip there I bought a prepaid SIM for my GSM phone and was subject to a reasonable inquiry of producing my passport so that the name page could be copied.
Prepaid phones are both a profitable business and a useful service in general. But shouldn’t the industry and FCC start asking questions about why anonymous prepaid service is such a good idea? Section 301of the Communications Act requires a license for transmitter use. 47 C.F.R. 22.3(b) says that subscribers can effectively use the operator’s Tittle III license. Should this really apply if the operators have no idea who the subscribers are? Should FCC ask Tracfone how their users could be in compliance with §22.3 if Tracfone has no idea who they are? (A side comment on §22.3: a careful reading shows it is ambiguous whether it applies to all cellular services or just those in Part 22.)
But just banning all prepaid phones is a poor idea because they are especially useful to the lower tiers of society and important for both their safety and to enable access to employment and social services. Any mandatory registration system for prepaid phones has to be flexible enough to balance between legitimate public safety issues and maintaining connectivity for all legitimate users.
But isn’t it time that FCC and industry start a dialogue
on reasonable ways to stop the current flood of anonymous prepaid phones
and their impact on crime and terrorism?
UPDATE
Related story in ars technica
Includes this observation:
The Canadian government funded a study (PDF) on this question back in 2006. A team from Simon Fraser University looked at 24 OECD countries and found that nine of them require mobile operators to collect registration data for prepaid phone users.
"In all cases, the rationale for a prepaid registration requirement was to improve efficiency of law enforcement and national security activities," said the report.
Parade's Gift to CTIA Wireless 2010
As the moguls of the cell industry gather in Las Vegas for CTIA’s Wireless 2010 conference, Parade magazine, the Sunday insert in many newspapers and the most widely read magazine in the U.S., with a claimed circulation of 33 million and a readership of 73 million has the featured story shown above.
I do not believe that the Parade article reasonably discusses the present situation on safety of cell phones.
But the cellular industry brought this PR disaster on themselves by being in a severe state of denial on this issue and the public’s rightful interest in it. The cellular industry strongly fought Chmn. Kennard’s plan to make SAR data readily available on the FCC website. They did not want the public to have access to which phones have lower SARs.
I have previously contrasted policies of CTIA with its French counterpart, AFOM.
AFOM makes reasonable suggestion on how you can decrease your exposure to RF, why can’t US industry do the same?
Actually RF exposures are probably decreasing in general as operators build out their networks and decrease the average distance to cell towers from users. Broadband uplinks from users could increase exposures, but in reality mobile broadband use is generally asymmetrical with little uplink traffic.
However, the industry’s bold attempt in Docket 10-4 to kill off the cellular amplifier industry because a few poorly designed models cause interference (rather than adopting standards to prevent such designs) will increase exposures in fringe areas.
AT&T Says 'No' to Texting While Driving
Wireless Week reports:
AT&T today announced a campaign aimed at curtailing the unsafe practice of texting while driving. The carrier hopes to raise awareness about the risks of texting and driving and remind all wireless consumers, especially youth, that text messages can, and should, wait until after driving.
Thus AT&T is breaking with the CTIA crowd and taking a more aggressive stand on the issue. CTIA’s position remains
The wireless industry is neutral on outright bans of cellular use while driving and hands-free legislation. We believe consumers can best determine what laws (bans or hands-free) that they would or would not support related to talking on their devices. At the same time, we believe text-messaging while driving is incompatible with safe driving, and we support state and local statutes that ban this activity while driving.
T-Mobile’s “driving tips” include nothing about texting. The only thing on the subject I could find on Sprint was a link to the horrific YouTube U.K. public service announcement shown below - a bloody example of what texting can result in. This PSA is so horrific that YouTube restricts to viewers over 18 - so it probably has limited impact on users. I could find nothing on VZW’s website on texting and driving.
However, if these firms provide me with links, I would be glad to revise this.
So congratulations to AT&T for making the decision to break from its more conservative competitors and push the safety issue here.
Allstate: "Texting while driving kills. But the real crime is, it's legal."
It goes on to say
“Opposable thumbs helped humans to survive. But in modern times, using thumbs to text while driving could lead to extinction....Join us tomorrow, February 9, at the Allstate Thumbs Up Pledge Event from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Union Station to add your thumbprint to the more than 65,000 who have pledged not to text and drive.”
This is in addition to the Allstate website shown below on the issue and a separate one devoted to teenage texting
CTIA does have a public service announcement on its website on the teenage issue:
On the Road, Off the Phone
As teens & novice drivers learn the complex task of driving a motor vehicle, safety should always come first. The wireless industry & National Safety Council urge teens to adopt an “On the Road, Off the Phone” philosophy to avoid the dangers of distracted driving”
But CTIA still has this position statement:
The wireless industry is neutral on outright bans of cellular use while driving and hands-free legislation. We believe consumers can best determine what laws (bans or hands-free) that they would or would not support related to talking on their devices.
So it looks like Allstate and the wireless industry have staked out very different positions here.
This is not a new issue. In searching the ever cluttered FCC website for information on it, I found this statement from (then) Comm. Rachelle Chong, who had worked for a major cellular carrier before joining the Commission, to a CTIA meeting in 1997:
“Driving Risks of Mobile Phones
Another potential hot issue for your industry stems from media attention on a recent Canadian study. That study found that drivers who used car phones were four times more likely to have accidents.
In light of this study, I would like to ask the industry to step up your public education efforts about safe driving habits. Stressing the risks involved and the availability of hands free technology would be helpful. I do recognize, however, what a benefit mobile phone users have been for law enforcement officials. They often aid the highway patrol in reporting accidents and reporting road hazards.”
Can the USA Afford the REAL Cost of Anonymous Prepaid Cell Phones?
Prepaid cell phones by themselves are not a problem.
What is a problem is the ease that these phones can be used as anonymous prepaid cell phones.
What is the difference between prepaid cellphones and anonymous prepaid cell phones? There is not physical difference. When you buy a prepaid phone at 7-11, Walmart, etc. you just pay for them as with any other purchase. There is not registration, no ID check, etc. And the phone doesn’t work yet.
Then you have to register the phone with the provider, sometimes a subsidiary of one of the major 4 carriers, sometimes an independent like TracFone, which is actually the largest provider of prepaid services in the US. At that point the provider asks for you identity. But the transaction is done either over the phone or by Internet so it is perfectly easy to give a false identity. But what if you don’t have the time or aren’t creative enough to dream up a false name and address? TracFone is there for you! As the screenshot above shows, the ever thoughtful TracFone has a line on their registration page that says “If you wish to skip this step, please click here”.
OK so some people want anonymity. Tiger Woods for example. I understand. I am even a card carrying ACLU member. But did you ever Google “prepaid cellphone crime”? You get 88,000+ hits on this combination of topics. Just like on Law & Order, prepaid “throw away” phones are the communications media of choice for criminals.
Overseas, prepaid phones are the media for choice for terrorists too. Indeed, the 2004 Madrid train bombings were detonated by prepaid cell phones.
Other countries have banned anonymous prepaid phones by requiring registration of all users and equipment. Such countries include Japan, Greece, and Mexico.
Now strict registration of cell phones has its downside too. Studies have shown that communications is necessary for homeless individuals to get jobs and back on the road to recovery. Cell phones are also a safety issue and there are users with legitimate safety issues who might not be able to walk into a Verizon Office to offer normal documentation.
But rather than sweeping this issue under the carpet, why don’t we start a dialogue among the cellular industry, law enforcement agencies, and FCC to explore practical ways to control the use of the large number of anonymous prepaid phones.
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