MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands finally to have mobile phones

According to Rick Hall, a representative of the electronics company Cable & Wireless, the Falkland Islands should, by December this year, join the rest of the world by having a mobile telephone system.

He said that the Islands has a potential of 2,700 customers, which includes both the Civilian and Military populations.

The system will offer Voice-mail, SMS, pre-paid and post-paid services. Costs for national calls and SMS will be similar to that offered by the orange mobile company.

However International calls will cost more than Orange. Cable & Wireless plan to build six base stations, four of which will be in Stanley and a further two at the Military Base at Mt. Pleasant.

The Falklands business community in particular, has for some time urged Cable & Wireless to establish the technology which is required to bring the Falklands into the 21st century in terms of a mobile phone system. It is anticipated that total installations cost will amount to between £4 and 5 million pounds.

Concern has been expressed by some members of the civilian population with respect to the level of radio transmission signals which they say could cause health damage. One mobile phone base station site has been pinpointed quite close to where a kindergarden is located in the centre of Stanley. Mr Hall refuted these concerns saying that level of transmission locally will be much less than experienced in Britain. He added that in a 1km square area in St. James Park in central London there are 41 base stations, while Stanley will have just 3. Mr Hall said a safe distance from the transmitting site is just over one meter. He reassured those expressing concern that there would be nothing to fear from the base stations.

Cable & Wireless have also announced that they intend to introduce Broadband to the internet services, as this is likely to be late in 2005 or early in 2006.

Patrick Watts - Mercopress - Stanley.