Brain cancer fears over heavy mobile phone use (Australia)
A top Australian neurosurgeon says the world’s heavy reliance on mobile phones could be a greater threat to human health than smoking and even asbestos.
Vini Khurana, who conducted a 15-month “critical review” of the link between mobile phones and malignant brain tumours, said using mobiles for more than 10 years could more than double the risk of brain cancer.
He has called for “immediate and decisive steps” by industry and governments to reduce people’s exposure to invisible electromagnetic radiation emitted by handsets.
Dr Khurana also called for a “solid scientific study” observing heavy mobile phone users for a period of at least 10-15 years.
“It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking, and directly concerns all of us, particularly the younger generation, including very young children,” Dr Khurana said in a research paper published on the website brain-surgery.us.
In a phone interview Khurana clarified the statement, saying he was not implying smoking was better for people than using mobile phones, but mobile-phone related health issues affected a far greater number of people.
He said there were currently 3 billion mobile phone users worldwide, a number that is growing daily, and people started using them as young as three.
He said mobile phone radiation could heat the side of the head or potentially thermoelectrically interact with the brain, while Bluetooth devices and “unshielded” headsets could “convert the user’s head into an effective, potentially self-harming antenna”.
Dr Khurana, who is a staff specialist neurosurgeon at the Canberra Hospital and an associate professor of neurosurgery at the Australian National University, said there had been increased reports of brain tumours associated with heavy and prolonged mobile phone use, particularly on the same side as the person’s “preferred ear” for making calls.
Chris Althaus, chief executive of the industry body, the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association, rejected Dr Khurana’s conclusions, saying handsets were designed, built and tested to comply with strict science-based guidelines.
Mr Althaus pointed to various research papers including a World Health Organisation fact sheet on the issue, published in 2000, which said no recent reviews had concluded that exposure to the radiofrequency fields from mobile phones and their base stations caused any adverse health consequences.
But the WHO said there were “gaps in knowledge” that required further research to better assess health risks, which would take several years to complete.
Further, Khurana said the WHO fact sheet was irrelevant in this instance because “most of the worrisome data has been surfacing in the last 12-24 months”.
A fact sheet on the NSW Cancer Council’s website said there was no reason for concern over harmful effects from using mobile phones but relatively little was known on the long-term effects of electromagnetic field exposure, so more research was needed.
Dr Khurana, who since 1994 has received 14 awards, said the time between the commencement of regular mobile phone usage to the diagnosis of a malignant solid brain tumour might be in the order of 10-20 years.
He said the link between mobile phones and brain tumours had not yet been “definitively proven” because widespread mobile phone usage commenced in the mid-1980s and solid tumours might take several years to form.
“In the years 2008-2012, we will have reached the appropriate length of follow-up time to begin to definitively observe the impact of this global technology on brain tumour incidence rates,” Dr Khurana said.
But he said there was already enough evidence to warrant industry and governments taking immediate action to reduce mobile phone users’ exposure to electromagnetic radiation and inform them of potential dangers.
“Worldwide availability and use of appropriately shielded cell phones and hands-free devices including headsets, increased use of landlines and pagers instead of current mobile and cell phones, and restricted use of cellular and cordless phones among children and adults alike are likely to limit the effects of this physically ‘invisible’ danger,” Dr Khurana said.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Mobile phones ‘worse than smoking’
Mobile phones could represent a public-health time bomb akin to asbestos or smoking, according to a study by neurosurgeon Dr Vini G Khurana. It suggests there is growing evidence of a link between excessive long-term use of mobiles and certain types of brain tumours — reigniting a long-running debate about the safety of the technology.
During a 14-month-long study Khurana reviewed more than 100 studies on the effects of mobile-phone use in recent medical and scientific literature — in addition to press and internet coverage — and concludes “there is a significant and increasing body of evidence… for a link between mobile-phone usage and certain brain tumours”.
The risk may be as great as a twofold to fourfold increase of developing a tumour on the same side of the head as the “preferred side” for mobile-phone use, the report warns.
It states: “There is a growing and statistically significant body of evidence reporting that brain tumours such as vestibular schwannoma (acoustic neuroma) and astrocytoma are associated with ‘heavy’ and ‘prolonged’ mobile-phone use, particularly on the same side as the ‘preferred ear’ for telephony.
“It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking, and directly concerns all of us, particularly the younger generation, including very young children.”
Khurana, a Mayo Clinic-trained neurosurgeon with an advanced neurosurgery Fellowship in Cerebrovascular and Complex Tumor Surgery from the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, and a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, points out that previous studies which found no evidence of a link between mobile use and an increased risk of cancer often did not include enough long-term mobile-phone users in their study sample.
Because 10 or more years is the length of time it can take for tumours to develop, Khurana says health studies of mobile phones must consider lengthy exposure to the devices — of a decade or more. He believes mobile technology has now been around long enough for any public health effects to begin emerging.
The report states: “The ‘incubation time’ or ‘latency’ (ie, the time from commencement of regular mobile-phone usage to the diagnosis of a malignant solid brain tumour in a susceptible individual) may be in the order of 10 to 20 years. In the years 2008 to 2012, we will have reached the appropriate length of follow-up time to begin to definitively observe the impact of this global technology on brain-tumour incidence rates.”
While there is still no proven link between cancer and exposure to electromagnetic radiation from mobile-phone use, Khurana said the growing body of evidence is cause for concern. Children’s use of mobiles is particularly worrying, he claims, suggesting their use of mobiles should be restricted to emergency situations only.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Mywaves cuts content and ad deal with MTV, a first (USA)
While many an entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley imagine their start-ups replacing established media companies, fast-growing mobile video startup MyWaves is instead working with the big companies.
Today, for example, it is announcing a deal with MTV, where MTV will — for the first time in its history — license its content to a third party mobile site that is not related to a carrier.
MTV will also sell advertising on the MyWaves site and the two companies will split revenue from any sale either company makes for ads that appear on MyWave’s MTV content.
Yes, all this is happening even as MTV’s parent company, Viacom, continues to try to sue Google’s YouTube for $1 billion in damages, due to YouTube publishing copyright-infringing clips of Viacom-owned videos. More context: Viacom is so serious about hording its content that it’s even refusing to work with Hulu, the online video startup supported by Fox and other large media companies that is publishing these companies’ premium content, hoping to make it profitable on the web.
Previously to this MyWaves deal, if mobile users wanted to watch an MTV video they would have to pay a carrier a flat monthly fee to access it. (Note: Sprint, my former carrier, offered this service, and I stopped checking it out as soon as I hit the paywall.)
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based MyWaves’ advertising services will allow it, and MTV, to sell ads based on user demographics, such as country location. On the one hand, MTV works with a large number of major advertisers, on the other hand, MyWaves works with a lot of companies experimenting in mobile advertising. For example, Microsoft is running an ad campaign on MyWaves, advertising Office to MyWave’s users in India. The revenue-share agreement isn’t disclosed, chief executive Rajeev Raman tells me, except that revenue is split in part based on which partner made the sale.
One big issue with video distribution — both online and mobile — is that they have yet to become profitable businesses. The mobile advertising market is worth $100 million in its entirety, Raman estimates, and that’s not just video, its also text message and voice advertising, and other formats. That number won’t get most investors excited at the moment, but mobile web services are growing fast, and new forms of advertising are being developed. For example, Raman says that on MyWaves, users don’t mind 15-second ads that play before a video (pre-roll ads, in industry lingo), even though they dislike pre-rolls on web videos: The reason is that any user who’s willing to use their mobile device to watch a video is willing to put up with the 15-second hassle to watch the video for free.
Meanwhile, advertisers want to have their products paired with professional content because they know what it will be, whereas they don’t want to be paired with user-generated content (as seen on YouTube) because it may not be up to the quality and taste of the advertiser’s brand.
In fact, high-quality content has already led to MyWaves seeing a sharp spike in traffic: The site had more than five million unique visitors last December and has been growing at a monthly rate of 15 to 20 percent since then, Raman says. The average MyWaves users comeback seven times a month, watches five clips and stays on the site 19 minutes, he claims.
So MyWaves seems to be doing well by working with content-creating companies — stay tuned for a post later today that explores how this strategy has been implemented.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News Mobile Advertising
Enhanced TCS Real-Time Traffic Applications Provide Personalized Up-to-the-Minute Traffic Information
TeleCommunication Systems, Inc, a leading provider of mission-critical wireless communications and content, today announced several significant enhancements to its traffic applications for the Mobile Internet. The enhancements enable wireless carriers to provide their customers with personalized traffic information across all available handsets. Drivers can map custom commute routes, easily pan and zoom the maps, and obtain traffic information in more metro markets. TCS has launched the TCS Traffic application on the two largest wireless operators in North America.
The new TCS Traffic application makes it easier for consumers to quickly access traffic along personalized routes with “My Commute.” The commuting tool empowers the driver to create and save multiple, frequently used routes such as to and from home and work, sporting events or other favorite locations. They are also shown alternative routes to help them to determine the fastest way to their destination — saving time, gas and frustration. Other personalization features include quick access to last-view metro areas or regions, panning and zooming to assess traffic speed flow and incident information, and broad handset coverage through support of both WAP 1.0 and 2.0 for mobile browsers.
In addition to the new personalization features, TCS Traffic now supports mobile advertising with Mobile Marketing Association compliant advertising formats. Through this support, TCS partners with those carriers implementing mobile advertising within their content networks. By providing their customers with advertising-supported traffic information, carriers can offer value-added TCS Traffic free of charge. TCS Traffic with advertising support is currently deployed with a large North American wireless operator.
“TCS continues to build upon our leadership position in mobile real-time traffic by delivering the broadest coverage and the most innovative features that are important to our carrier customers and ultimately their consumers,” stated Drew Morin, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of TCS. “These new enhancements not only empower our wireless operators with the most trusted and reliable traffic applications available today, but they can also leverage TCS Traffic as a platform to deliver advertising and enhance their revenue stream.”
Now available in more than 100 U.S. metro areas, TCS Traffic’s high-quality, accurate, real-time data helps drivers deal with traffic delays. Compiled from multiple sources including local and state police, Departments of Transportation, automated speed sensors, and aircraft, TCS Traffic reports the traffic speed flow and common delays caused by conditions including accidents; adverse weather conditions; congestion; road construction and closures; sporting events, concerts, and festivals; and toll plaza backups.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News Mobile Advertising
Worldwide mobile advertising revenue to surpass $2,7bn in 2008
Worldwide mobile advertising is projected to surpass $2,7bn in 2008, up from $1,7bn in 2007, but the market has developed slowly and obstacles remain, according to Gartner. Ease of use and relevancy to consumers are two important factors that must be addressed to help to build momentum in the mobile advertising market.
“Innovative developments, such as minimising the number of keystrokes required to access information, using the phone’s camera to improve the overall user experience and tying content or shopping location relevancy to advertisements will move the market forward,” says Tole Hart, research director at Gartner. “To encourage users to accept advertisements, advertisers must improve the way search results are managed on the handset so that the experience is painless and rewarding to end-users.”
“There are several players that can benefit from the mobile advertising market moving forward, including brands, merchants, carriers, banks, and bill-paying agencies,” says Andrew Frank, research vice-president at Gartner. “An important attribute of mobile advertising will be relevancy because the device is very personal to the consumer. All parties win when greater relevancy occurs. The market and consumer will gravitate to content and advertisement messages that are relevant to them.”
The mobile advertising market has generated a lot of hype for a variety of reasons: number of handsets, capabilities of the phone and the major Internet portals entering the market. However, the industry must still overcome several problems to drive the market forward.
Some of the impediments to growth include slow adoption of multimedia, lack of consumer acceptance, lack of metric transparency, immaturity of standards, diversity of platforms, form factor issues, cross-media integration priorities and the complexity of the value chain, inventory of content, privacy, education and ease of accessing content.
“Many of these issues will be resolved during the next two years, but the make-or-break question of mobile advertising is: Will customers accept advertisements, and can brands and advertisers drive revenue via mobile advertising?” Hart says.
While effective targeting can dramatically improve response rates to advertisements, Gartner analysts said this may require existing knowledge of customers’ demographics, an opt in to the brand’s advertisements, location sensitivity, or contextual relevance to the content delivered.
“Advertising often runs the risk of being perceived as junk mail or a privacy violation, so advertisers must use such targeting techniques with care,” Frank says. “However, sponsored content has proven successful in other media. There are several companies working on providing mobile content integrated with advertisements. In addition, location has long been thought of as a factor for relevancy, but to date precision has been limited as the capability and the cost of GPS has been too high, along with the low penetration of GPS phones.”
Despite challenges to the market, the industry is still poised for consistent growth. By the end of 2011 worldwide mobile advertising revenue is forecast to surpass $12,8bn.
AOL Taps Cellufun for Mobile Games Channel
MySpace, the world’s most popular social network, and mBlox, the world’s largest mobile transaction network, today announced that MySpace’s text message alert program is now available to millions of users from the following wireless service providers: Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile USA, Alltel Wireless, U.S. Cellular, and Virgin Mobile USA. MySpace’s text message alerts provide users near real-time notification of new messages, friend requests, comments and other key activity within their MySpace profiles.
With the addition of five major carriers to distribute MySpace alerts via mBlox, more than 90% of MySpace users are now able to receive these alerts. MySpace users can register for MySpace text message alerts by logging into http://www.myspace.com, then clicking the Text Alerts†link displayed on the User Homepage.
“MySpace users have come to depend on our text message alerts for instant notification when family and friends reach out to them on MySpace,” said Brandon Lucas, senior director of mobile business development, MySpace. “This partnership with mBlox brings us a step closer to fulfilling our vision of empowering MySpace users to stay connected with their community wherever they are, whenever they like.”
SMS text messaging is expanding its reach into all aspects of our daily lives and this is an example of how mobile messaging is enhancing the consumer experience in social networking,†said Steve Livingston, chief marketing officer of mBlox. We are delighted to be entrusted to deliver tens of millions of mobile alerts per month to MySpace users when they are on the go.â€
This announcement comes on the heels of several recent developments in MySpace’s growing mobile business, including the official launch of the free, ad-supported MySpace Mobile Website (m.myspace.com) and a direct distribution deal with Sprint, both announced last week.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
VERIZON WIRELESS CUSTOMERS SEND AND RECEIVE 20 BILLION MESSAGES IN A SINGLE MONTH
Seven years after the launch of basic text messaging, Verizon Wireless customers sent and received more than 10 billion messages in a single month June 2007.
Eight short months later, the number of text messages on the Verizon Wireless network in a month doubled to nearly 20 billion.
The volume of text messages being sent and received by Verizon Wireless customers is growing exponentially,†said Mike Lanman, chief marketing officer of Verizon Wireless. Whether it’s sports scores, news updates, the latest weather forecast, or the ‘joke of the day’, text messages are a tremendous way for anyone to stay on top of what’s happening in the world.
Not to mention all of the parents and grandparents keeping up with their kids, or kids texting each other throughout the day, text messaging is becoming an increasingly important way to communicate for people of all ages,†Lanman added.
Benefits of Text Messaging
As texting grows into a more mainstream communications channel, opportunities grow for new and innovative messaging programs some involving short codes that allow citizens to participate in activities of their choice.
Hundreds of contests, promotions and other opt-in†campaigns have been launched in the past few years, giving marketers and advocates other ways to reach consumers with unique offers or information. Since 2005, wireless service providers have offered Wireless AMBER Alerts, allowing consumers to opt-in†to receive a text message when an AMBER Alert about a missing or abducted child is issued in their area.
Using text messaging to fundraise for charity is another of those opportunities. Verizon Wireless believes it’s time to create a set of best practices around mobile giving, so Americans who contribute are protected and there is a solid framework in place for these campaigns.
Stopping Unwanted Text Messages and Wireless Spam
As the use and popularity of text messaging has increased, Verizon Wireless has been increasingly vigilant in its efforts to thwart wireless spam. Network filters prevent as many as 200 million spam messages per month from reaching customers’ handsets. When spam messages do get through, the company investigates outbreaks and in some cases, brings lawsuits against the spammers.
Verizon Wireless offers numerous ways for customers to block text messages everything from stopping messages that originate on the Internet or e-mail (where most spam is generated) from being delivered, to blocking short code-based text message campaigns that involve premium charges, to completely turning off messaging to and from a handset.
TeliaSonera, Cogent broker peering deal
Connectivity restored between networks but exact details of deal confidential.
TeliaSonera and Cogent Monday confirmed they have restored connectivity between their networks after reaching a deal on a new peering agreement.
“We are very pleased to have a new agreement in place,” said Malin Frenning, president and CEO of TeliaSonera International Carrier.
“The situation that gave rise to the lack of connectivity has been resolved and the respective networks have resumed the exchange of IP traffic,” said a statement from the Swedish carrier.
Trouble for Cogent’s and TeliaSonera’s Internet customers began on March 13 when the peering agreement which enabled Web traffic to flow between the companies’ networks was ended by Cogent.
At first content was being routed indirectly via TeliaSonera’s transiting agreement with Verizon, but then that deal came to an end, effectively partitioning the Internet for TeliaSonera and Cogent customers.
Still, Frenning said that the problem has caused minimal disruption to TeliaSonera’s customers.
“We have been working 24 hours a day with our customers since it happened to resolve any issues, but it hasn’t caused too much disturbance,” she said.
Cogent initially blamed TeliaSonera for allegedly breaching the terms of their peering agreement, claiming the Swedish carrier was wary of Cogent’s recent expansion into the Nordics.
“It is my belief that they feel threatened by our growth in these markets,” Dave Schaeffer, CEO of Cogent told Total Telecom recently.
TeliaSonera denied this allegation, and instead accused the U.S. carrier of bullying tactics.
“We have other competitors in the U.S. that we have good peering relationships with,” commented Frenning, last week.
“This is an attempt to push us around a little bit,” she added.
Yet, by Friday connectivity between the two networks had bee restored when both companies signed a new peering agreement.
“The terms of the [new] agreement were satisfactory to both parties,” said Jeff Henrikson director of marketing and communications at Cogent.
However, both Cogent and TeliaSonera have refused to comment on the details of the new agreement and how they arrived at it.
“This is something confidential between us and Cogent,” said Frenning.
TeliaSonera had been exploring other ways to re-establish connectivity to Cogent’s network in the event that a new peering agreement wouldn’t be reached.
“During the whole process we have been working on alternative solutions with other parties, but this has now stopped since we have made this new agreement,” said Frenning.
