I'm Not Saying Anything, But….

The Times newspaper this week claimed that eBay is to put pressure on Ofcom to improve the quality of mobile phone networks across the UK. You have to love their timing.

With the health risks of telecommunication technology all over the media (most of it horribly misleading, biased and outright false), and phone masts going up all over the country (even where there are already several in situ), eBay choose their moment to demand that industry lapdog…oops, sorry….watchdog – Ofcom – force the mobile operators to install more masts (also known as cell towers and the distinctly un-sexy base stations) and turn them up to 11. As if either Ofcom or the mobile operators need any encouragement to “increase coverage and signal strength”.

Apparently, blanket wi-fi coverage over almost all of Britain (give them time, give them time) is still not sufficiently paralysing to enable enough shoppers to bid and buy on enough stuff over at eBay. Access via poor old superfast broadband or cable through the PC/laptop at home or work is no longer fulfilling the unquenchable needs of potential eBay customers, desperate to bid 1p on something while they are out and about. Or is that the unquenchable greed of eBay’s shareholders, not satisfied with the billions being made through the existing online platform? I’m confused.

Smartphones, they say, are the saviour of the retail industry. Fail to embrace this technology and we will fall into the dark ages. We must be able to capitalise on the wonders of the Smartphone (ie. its ability to help people spend money at will)! We must allow everyone to shop! shop! shop!

Which brings us to another observation. Funny how the subject of Smartphones and their fundamental, vital difference to previous mobile phones has not been mentioned at all in the press coverage surrounding RF Radiation’s risk to human health. Likewise the thorny topic of those unsexy base stations. The public continues to be kept in the dark, and deliberately misinformed. Smartphones are mini-cell towers by themselves; the mast-in-a-pocket.

Talk about the elephant in the room. This is a whole zoo-full of them. What do people think phones, and especially smartphones, run on? How do they think they work? Magic?

Nearly everyone on this planet now uses a phone and most are now using smartphones. This is no longer about making or not making calls, or holding it 10mm, or 25mm from your head. This stuff, the invisible magic stuff that makes the smartphones work like mini computers, downloading, browsing, doing all those groovy interactive things you see on the TV, is everywhere. It is stronger than 6 months ago. Much, much stronger than 12 months ago. The game has changed.

And yet the media coverage and the reports carry on discussing the issue as if we are still in 2007, using little mobile telephones and texting our friends a couple of times a day. Not carrying a portable phone mast around with us, close to our bodies and always turned on. The entire debate is out of date before they’ve even started to address the problem.

Just in case anyone still hasn’t made the connection between the mobile in your hand and or on your ear….they need giant masts. The type which eBay want more of. Lots more.

Over to you, Ofcom.