Conflicting reports about the health risks of mobile phones appeared in the late 1990s
- £7.4 million has now been invested in scientific research to investigate the effects of mobile phones
- 2004: there are more than 40 million mobile phones in the UK and over 30,000 base stations
- In 2000, the Stewart Report found no known health problems caused by mobile phones, but advised caution especially among the young, until more research was carried out. A further report in 2004 backed this up
- Given the immense numbers of mobile users, even small adverse effects on health could have major public health implications
Key statistics: (as of Dec 2004)
| Global Mobile Users | 1.52 billion |
| Analogue Users | 34m |
| Overall 3G users | 130m |
| Overall African users | 53m |
| Overall South African users | 19m |
| Overall European users | 342.43 |
| United States Mobile users | 140m |
| Global GSM users | 1.25 billion |
| Global CDMA users | 202m |
| Global TDMA users | 120m |
| #1 Mobile Country | China (300m) |
| #1 GSM Country | China (282m) |
| #1 In Infrastructure | Ericsson |
| #1 in Handsets 2004 | Nokia(35.5%) |
| #1 Network In Europe | T-Mobil (28m) |
| #1 Network In Africa | Vodacom(11m) |
| #1 Network In Asia | Unicom (153m) |
| #1 Network In Japan | DoCoMo |
| Global monthly SMS | 36/user |
| SMS messages sent in UK 3/2004 | 2.1 billion |
| SMS messages sent Global 2004 | 135 billion |