§ Mr. EnnisTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what progress has been made by the Government on the recommendation made by the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones, chaired by Professor Sir William Stewart, on developing and maintaining a national database on base stations and their emissions. [160941]
§ Ms HewittI have asked the Radio communications Agency (RA) to develop and maintain a public database giving details on all operating cellular base stations and their emissions, in response to the recommendations of the Independent Experts Group on Mobile Phones report chaired by Professor Sir William Stewart.
The RA has been making steady progress in implementing this recommendation. It is developing an internet based solution known as "Sitefinder". Sitefinder will employ a map-based facility indicating the location of cellular phone base stations. More information on a particular base station will be available by simply clicking on the position indicator for the base station in question.
214WThe mobile phone companies have been consulted during the development of this resource and have voluntarily agreed to disclose information on their respective base stations. RA have been formatting the data received from the cellular operators to make it compatible with the database software.
"Sitefinder" is currently undergoing strenuous system and user acceptance testing. It is hoped that "Sitefinder" should be made publicly available via the RA's website later this summer.