Advances in the regulation and control of non-ionizing emissions in the Americas

A new workshop organized by CITEL has analysed the status of development of the standards prepared by international organizations, and the vision of different regional regulatory bodies regarding the methods to control electromagnetic emissions.

Following the success of the event held in Perú and taking into account several requests to repeat the same in Central America, the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL) carried out a “Workshop on Technical and Regulatory Aspects of the Effects of Non-Ionizing Electromagnetic Emissions”, last April,  in El Salvador.

On this occasion, the event was held jointly with the Central America Telecommunications Commission (COMTELCA) and the ITU through its Regional Excellence Training Node for the Americas, together with the General Superintendency of Electricity and Telecommunications (Superintendencia General de Electricidad y Telecomunicaciones – SIGET) within the framework of the IX Meeting of the Permanent Consultative Committee II.

The workshop, coordinated by Mr. Héctor Carril, Rapporteur of the Group on the Technical and Regulatory Aspects Related to the Effects of Electromagnetic Non-Ionizing Emissions, analysed the state of development of standards and studies carried out by international organizations, the vision of different regional regulatory bodies, the procedures to establish control rules and methods regarding antennae installation and contributions of sector companies. The worshop’s activities focused on updating information regarding the possible effects on health derived from the installation of antennae for broadcasting and mobile telephone services and was attended by topic specialists from the WHO, ICNIRP, IEEE, IEC, as well as regional regulators.

One more country, Paraguay, joined the group of countries that have developed standards on Non-Ionizing Radiations.

It is worth to note the increasing participation of Mayors, City Counsellors, Citizen and Environment Protection Organizations, as well as sector companies, in the debate intended to explain the development of protection and control policies.

Therefore, the Chair of the Chamber of  Informatics and Communications of Argentina (CICOMRA), Mr. Norberto Capellán, talked about the regulatory framework on NIR, which in the case of Argentina, includes all types of antennae emitting electromagnetic waves. Capellán emphasized the fact that all measurements made in Argentina, in the provinces of Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Mendoza, Entre Ríos, Neuquén, Chubut and Catamarca, have rendered values that are hundreds of times below the maximum limits admitted by current regulations. In the city of Buenos Aires, more than 700 antennae were measured.

Although measurements showed the above mentioned results, the general public should be aware that controls are being made. To that end, Mr. Antonio Marini, from the Research & Development Center on Telecommunications (CPqD) of Brazil, presented a permanent monitoring process, which includes a complete record of the stations, a theoretical simulation of the electromagnetic emissions of a station, the results of the simulation, the automatic updating of the data bank and the availability of results through the Internet.

Besides, Wavecontrol presented  an example case  of  NIR measurements requested by the government of Cataluña, in Spain. Through the MapEM tool it is possible to obtain exhaustive information regarding the various networks divided in three big groups: a) radiation levels caused by electromagnetic fields, b) coverage levels and networks technical data, and c) quality of service of each network. In this way, the tool generates an electromagnetic map of each city with information about the different mobile telephone networks.

The results of the studies that were presented in the workshop, showed that when this type of systems are applied, there is a decrease of 43% in the social alarm of the population regarding the deployment of networks, 95% of the population considers it is worth monitoring, and 86% of those polled believe that permanent monitoring may help deployment of new radiocommunication networks.

The Group presented a DVD including all actions performed by CITEL on this topic with videos of expert speakers who participated in the seminar held in Lima, Peru. This information will soon be also available through CITEL’s website.

Subsequent CITEL’s actions regarding this topic are related with training through the  Centre of Excellence of the ITU on collaboration with the WHO and the ICNIRP, and with support to all American Organizations requesting the same for the development of their standards and control rules.

Héctor Carril
Rapporteur
Group on Technical and Regulatory Aspects Related to the
Effects of Electromagnetic Non-Ionizing Emissions