People.... do not fear radiation laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Another bunch of uninformed and miseducated residents complaining about "mushrooming" telco towers, for the fear of health problems caused by "radiation".

Dey.... you watch TV is also radiation

You listen to radio is also radiation

You use CD player also got radiation

You use your wireless LAN is also radiation

You scared of big big antenna located some 100m away from you, but you not scared of the mobile phone that you put right next to your brain

You complain put tower near near but when they dismantle liau you complain no coverage...

MCMC...................................
Do your job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3G? WiMAX? WiFi? Confused?

Yesterday the bugs kept pestering me to explain the various types of wireless broadband options currently available in Malaysia. Well, I hope the embedded slideshare will be sufficient :)

What is Broadband?

View more presentations from nskhoo.

Complaining about Maxis coverage? Wait a minute... did you complain about them building tower in the first place?

Refer to this thread.

Apparently a bunch of residents are complaining that their Maxis coverage is going from bad to worst.

Well, the interesting thing is that they are complaining from an area where Maxis had previously built a radio tower there to improve the coverage. Unfortunately, due to "health scares" and residents complaints regarding their own safety, the local council ordered the telco to dismantle the radio tower. Hence, the coverage went down to zero. And now these same residents are complaining that they have no coverage.

MCMC... please, if you are serious in improving the state of mobile coverage and wireless broadband in our country, please get down to the ground and educate people about the truth regarding mobile communications and non-ionizing radiation!

In support of telco towers?

Something tells me the writer of this article works in the telco industry :D

applying for streamyx

How difficult can it be to apply for Streamyx? Very, as I am now experiencing...

It all started when I went to Carrefour's Streamyx agent to apply for the Streamyx Combo package. All fine and dandy then. I didn't need to pay for anything, just needed to fill in the form and wait. That was in 2008. 

One entire week later with no feedback from either the agent or TM, I decided to call TM's customer service line, and found out that there was some mix up with my records and the application was rejected.

*TULAN fact 1: Why didn't anybody call me!!?!?!?!?!?*

Anyway, I was advised to visit TMPoint center, so I had to sacrifice 2 hours of lunch time to go to the DU center and register myself. OK, all fine here. No issues on the phone line application. Everything went smoothly, and the phone line was setup the next morning. Now, all I needed to do was to wait for the Streamyx.

Here's where the confusion begins. A total of 4 different people called me up asking me if I subscribed to Streamyx. To all 4, I said the same thing. Yes I applied for Streamyx. They all asked me for user name. I gave them all user names. They all said that they will get the application done for me. None of them called me back.

*TULAN fact 2: Why isn't TM and TMNet talking to each other about my application records and status?!?!?!?!!?!*

Anyway, I just called back one of those 4 people and even there the person said they don't know what's happening and have no records of my phone number or my user name. I was advised to wait until later in the day for them to call me back. Yeahh right. As if they will call me back.

*TULAN fact 3: Why no standard operating procedure for these things???!?!! Why do I have to call and chase and find out so many problems?!!??!*

Streamyx... it's the fact that it's the only ADSL provider, so I apply for it. Otherwise, I would have gone with Maxis Broadband instead... KNS!!!

Again, anti-radiation people...

I suggest that you read this letter, then think about the following points:

The real problem is that the people who install this equipment have the nasty habit of hooking up a much larger antenna to extract a greater range. This is really danger-ous.

How is it dangerous? Greater range is dangerous? Give some studies please!

The second situation is to do with the characteristics of microwave antennas. Generally, the smaller the diameter of the antenna, the higher the frequency and the less control there is over radiation being spilled outwards.

What this means is that the dish itself radiates energy from the sides and this is known as the sidelobe performance. If a one-metre dish is hung inappropriately on a building, the sidelobe radiation can spill over into the rooms to the side and below.

In one case, four of these high-gain WiFi antennas radiated into three condominiums and caused endless health problems for the occupants.

Please provide some technical specifications on the uncontrollable side lobes of high gain microwave antennas. Please also provide the case where 4 high gain WiFi antennas caused "endless health problems for the occupants". Otherwise, stop sputing nonsense.

There was a prior situation on this concerning Melbourne University where the top two floors were emptied due to an unusual number of cancers. All of the equipment met regulatory requirements.

Please provide the reference to this incident, indicating the link between the RF emission and the incidents of cancer. Otherwise, don't mistake correlation for causation.

Seriously.. why so scared to progress? Remember that by the time the radiated power from antennas reach you, it has degraded to such miniscule values (0.0000001W!) that it's basically harmless. If anything, you should be more concerned about the radiation from your mobile phones when you're talking for hours!

Yet another bunch of tower-fearing people...

Residents of Putra Heights Section 9... please don't complain if you don't get good mobile network coverage or quality. Don't complain if your Maxis line or Celcom line or DiGi line only got 1 bar or even no line. Don't complain if you can't hear what the person on the other line is saying. Don't complain at all.

Because you didn't want the towers to be built.

Damned if we do, damned if we don't

This news article reports residents in Penang protesting over the construction of a telecommunications tower near their residential areas. The interesting thing is that the tower has been built according to MCMC (the government regulator for Communications) standards and safety guidelines, and as a response to the vehement complaints of poor coverage by the residents themselves. So they want good phone coverage but don't want the tower in their backyards?

Let's take a technical look at the misinformation. According to these protesters, building the tower so near to their houses will cause a lot of radiation and thus affect health and cause cancer. Let's see. The maximum transmit power of the base station is normally 43dBm, or 20W. After passing through the combiners, filters, feeders and antenna system gain, the EIRP (effective isotropic radiated power) will be around 55dBm, which is approximately 320W. However, since the waves need to propagate through the space from the antenna to the ground level, there is some form of degradation in the signal strength according to the appropriate propagation model. Usually, the signal strength on the ground level deteriorates to a value of -40dBm (depending on the distance from the antenna), which translates to a wattage value of 0.0000001W!

If we want to be worried, we should be worried about our handphones. Our handphones have a maximum transmit power of typically 21dBm, or 0.13W. Since there is no feeder or combiner system, and the antenna gain is typically 0dB, the EIRP from the phone is also 21dBm. Now, considering the fact that we normally use the phone by placing it against our ear (which is like just next to our brain), we expect the loss contributed by our body to be around 3dB. This means that the amount of power that is reaching our brain is 18dBm, or 0.06W. Compare this to the 0.0000001W from the base station. The power received from the base station is miniscule compared to the power received from the phone.

Does this mean that the phone will cause cancer? There is no absolute proof, no confirmed research to indicate yes or no at this point. However, we tend to take conveniences for granted, without understanding first what the facts are. We look at the large telecommunication towers with their large antennas and we become frightened. We look at the small handphone which we use and we think nothing of its radiation.

Let's face it. We are already accustomed to a wireless world. We treat mobile communications for granted, sometimes without knowing the technology that makes it happen. Perhaps MCMC should educate the consumers on the basics of wireless communication technology, so that health scares that lead to pointless protests will be a thing of the past, and we can all progress into the future.