Question

Is it safe to have a mobile tower on the roof of our apartment?

Answer 1

Yes,  two of who have been diagnosed with brain cancer after three towers were installed on the roof of their home in Jaipur.

Since then, illnesses, both minor and major, have become a part of their lives and the lives of the 50 other families in their neighbourhood.

Experts agreed. “Being exposed to a mobile tower located within 50m of your home or workplace is like being in a microwave oven for 24 hours,” said Prof. Girish Kumar, department of electrical engineering, IIT Bombay, who submitted a report on cell tower radiation to the department of telecommunications in December 2010.

Following that, in January 2011, a report by an inter-ministerial committee made recommendations to reduce the exposure to 450 mw/sq m. It has not been implemented yet,

Answer 2

Between the upgrading of existing systems and the licencing of new carriers, the rooftop landscape of Toronto, Canada is changing rapidly as new antennae are added daily. While TreeHugger has discussed the question of cell phone safety many times, we are usually talking about the phone itself, where users have some control, rather than the base stations, where residents in apartment buildings with base stations on the roof do not. Is this exposure dangerous? A recent installation raises some questions.

 was first alerted to the issue when the daughter of a close friend, who lived in the top floor of the nearby building where base stations were installed in December, started complaining. My friend describes her daughter's symptoms:

Symptoms were aching in her upper arms, nausea, couldn't sleep, and generally feeling 'not right'. She was complaining to me about not being able to sleep and not feeling well for about a month before she was aware of the issue of the cellphone. She would actually sleep out in the hallway.