Industry co-operation

Industry co-operation

O2 is committed to industry best practice in developing its mobile networks and we aim to be transparent in our network building plans.

Our approach – particularly in building 3G services – launched in the UK, Germany and Ireland over the last two years, is to encourage dialogue and consultation with stakeholders.

We work within GSM Europe (GSME) recommendations on best practice, the UK industry’s Ten Commitments on best siting practice and the joint operator voluntary commitments in Germany.

In Ireland, we work with local authorities and planners and comply with guidelines from the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg).

In addition, The Irish Cellular Industry Association (ICIA) has developed ‘10 Commitments’, which have been agreed by all the operators in Ireland. The ICIA hopes that these will lay the foundation for future collaboration to address public concerns about mobile telephony and network building.

All these commitments call for:

• Continuous improvement in communication and consultation.
• Compliance with exposure guidelines.
• Increased site sharing where possible.

We have a dedicated team of community relations officers in each of our businesses and their job is to engage with local communities on our network building activities – especially if there is local opposition to a mast.

We attend public meetings, consult through drop-in sessions, distribute information and, in the UK, operate a dedicated helpline for enquiries: telephone 01753 564306.

 

We aim to build our network with the least environmental impact as possible, including the visual effect of our masts.

At least once a year, we provide local planning authorities in the UK with lists of the sites we plan to develop in their communities in the next 12 months. This helps them work with our community teams to address potential concerns. In Germany we inform each local authority separately about any potential mast sites within their jurisdiction.

You can access information on mobile operator base stations through various online databases:

UK: www.ofcom.org.uk
Germany: http://emf.bundesnetzagentur.de/gisinternet/index.aspx?User=1000&Lang=de
Ireland: www.askcomreg.ie/mobile/site_viewer.asp
The Czech Republic: www.cz.o2.com/mobile/cz/customerService/maps/

In the UK, the regulator Ofcom is appealing against a request by a third party to get permission, under the Freedom of Information Act, to access information in the entire sitefinder database (above).

While we fully agree that the information should be available in its current form, including data on base stations and smaller micro cells, we are concerned about the commercial sensitivity of releasing its entire database. Our reasons include the opportunity for new competitors to find gaps in our coverage, and the possibility of increased vandalism.

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Mast siting

We aim to comply with best practice standards on mast siting. We aim to share our mast building plans with local authorities so that we can establish a dialogue early in the process.

O2 would not deliberately erect a mast without planning consent. Disputes do occasionally arise, however, over the validity of a planning consent, and in such cases O2 would seek to negotiate a mutually acceptable solution with the local authority. Occasionally disputes arise with local residents even when there is no debate over the validity of a planning consent, for example when the local authority fails to refuse an application within the statutory time limits. Just as in the previous example, O2 will always try to resolve the situation through dialogue both with the local authority and local residents.

One example of how we deal with disputed sites is our proposed mast structure in Caerlyon, South Wales. Local residents and planners did not support our selected site. We met them and, as a result, identified a new site. Our agents were unable to find the land owner so local residents have undertaken the search on our behalf.

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Health and the mobile industry

We participate in and co-fund several industry groups.

These include:

• Mobile Operators Association (MOA) in the UK.
• Informationszentrum Mobilfunk e.V. (IZMF) and BITKOM (Bundesverband Informationswirtschaft Telekommunikation und neue Medien e.V.) in Germany.
• GSM Europe (GSME) and the worldwide GSM Association.
• TIG, the TETRA Industry Group.

O2 takes a prominent role by chairing the GSME Health and Environment Working Group, the UK MOA’s Compliance Working Group and the Board of IZMF.  O2 is also a member of the GSM Association’s health policy sub-group. O2 Ireland chaired the Irish Cellular Industry Association during 2005. We are currently vice-chair of the ICIA EMF sub-group and the BITKOM EMF sub-group.

In 2006, the University of Reading and Arup, on behalf of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister – the government department then responsible for telecommunications planning in England – conducted a review of the Code of Best Practice on Mobile Phone Network Development (Ten Commitments).

The review’s key conclusions were that where telecommunication operators and their agents complied with the Code, it was considered to be working well, but that local planning authority compliance and involvement in planning for mobile network development varied considerably.

The researchers also found that some communities felt the code did not give them enough assurance that operators were taking their comments and concerns seriously. The code remains unchanged, but the industry is now working to improve its practices.

The Code of Best Practice can be found at: http://www.odpm.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1144926

The report can be found at: http://www.odpm.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1163923

The German Institute for Urban Affairs and the consumer protection association of North-Rhine Westfalia (Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein-Westfalen) reviewed our adherence to voluntary commitments for the fourth time in 2005. The report was published by the Federal Government in April 2006.

The report confirmed that German operators fulfil their voluntary commitments. It found that consultations are in general trouble free, but noted that we could achieve further improvements by enhancing communication between operators and local authorities.

EMF education for young people

We have launched a programme in schools and universities to teach the physics of electromagnetic fields (EMF) and the engineering of mobile phones and masts. We co-operated with the Bavarian environmental offices in Germany.

We map out the basic functions of a mobile phone network, introduce EMF and antennas in an accessible way, and give an overview of current EMF research. We want pupils to be able to critically challenge studies and their significance

Included in the presentation is EMF measurement, using different instruments including a SAR-head (a standard absorption rate mannequin head) provided by the Bavarian Environmental Office, especially designed for use in schools.

O2 employees from regional branch offices demonstrate the complex evaluation process we have to use to identify new locations for masts.

In 2006 several schools requested these presentations and further requests have been received.  In addition, we were invited to present at a science day organised by a school in Berlin and we held a lecture for the University of Applied Science in Mannheim.

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Mast sharing

We aim to share mast sites with other operators wherever feasible.

Some of O2’s ground-based masts are capable of hosting equipment from other operators and we allow this where possible. But not all our masts will meet the coverage requirements of other operators’ networks.

Sharing a mast usually means increasing the height and size of the mast and this is not always acceptable to local residents or planning regulations. In addition, shared sites will generally mean higher and more concentrated emissions, although all sites, even if shared, would nevertheless comply with international guidelines.

In line with Government policy in the UK, it is standard practice to see if we can use an existing mast or structure when searching for a new base station site.

In Germany we have a formal agreement with T-Mobile for national roaming. Elsewhere we have a general policy to share masts and use existing infrastructure, with other operators where possible.

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