Watch out for that killer call, SMS

NEW DELHI: Planning to buy the new Nokia 3310 or 6210? Think again — 12 people from Finland and 7 people from China died recently — common among all deaths is that they all purchased Nokia’s new 3310s and 6210s. The medical team that examined the bodies reported extreme levels of radiation from the two cell phone models.

Do not pick up calls from following numbers — 9888308001, +919316048121, 9876266211, 9888854137. Calls from these numbers will be of very high wave length and frequency. It can cause brain haemorrhage. It’s not a joke. 27 persons died just by receiving calls from these numbers.

Studies have proved that carrying a mobile phone in one’s trouser pocket can impact fertility, putting it in the shirt pocket on the vibrator mode can impact the heart and putting it next to the pillow can impact the brain! 20 Nokia batteries have exploded in the recent past. Be careful.

You must have received a number of such SMSs and mails in the past few days. Call it a ploy to subvert market share of a company or pure and simple food for rumour mongers, but the SMSs are proving to be a menace. They occupy prime time on national news channels, space on mail and SMS servers and, above all are a national waste of time. On the other hand, mobile operators must be happy when a single panic SMS generates lakhs of rupees in a matter of few hours.

The government too has recognised the dangers that misinformation can wreck on society. DoT has asked service providers to work for raising subscribers’ lelvel of understanding on health issues.

The Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC), which is the technical arm of the Department of Telecom (DoT), in its draft guidelines on protecting people from radiation has called for putting in place an ‘effective system of health information and communication, designed by scientists, government, industry and the public to raise the level of general understanding about mobile phone technology and reduce any mistrust and fears both real and perceived’.

Operators say that the issue is beyond their control. “We are completely shocked at this and are dismayed that this is beyond our control. Such hoax SMSs are being triggered by pranksters and is beyond our control to intervene,” explained Cellular Operators Association of India’s director general, TV Ramachandran. COAI represents all GSM operators.

Experts point out that messages warning about radiation from mobile phones or those about incoming calls with high frequencies are not a new phenomenon. For instance, the ‘don’t pick up a call from the following number’ message that is currently spreading panic in the country has already done the rounds in many Asian countries.

In fact, rumours about a killer mobile virus in Pakistan reached their peak when local mosques issued a statement saying that its God’s wrath on the unfaithful. On the face of it, it seems a majority the low-end users who use a basic monochrome display phone will be untouched by the killer SMSs. When ET tried to contact these ‘alleged high frequency numbers’, it was found that most of them did not exist, while there was no reply on one of them.

But how serious is radiation from mobiles? The expert committee of the TEC, with representatives from the industry, handset makers and operators and other stakeholders, in their initial report have pointed out that though the World Health Organization (WHO) had been studying this issue for many years. It has, however, not been able to prove if humans are affected by radiation from their handsets.

According to an industry expert, such hoax SMSs is not limited to just developing countries like India. There’s another popular story doing rounds in the West, though the country of target is China. The SMS reads as follows: “A 4-year-old girl was admitted in a hospital in China.

She had to undergo an operation to stitch a protruding bone back in place. Half way through the operation, the life support system suddenly went dead. The culprit: Some idiot was using his/her hand-phone outside the OT. The frequency affected the system.” Though the use of mobile phones can interfere with medical equipment, it cannot cause the death of an individual, explained the industry expert.

Yet another phenomenon — explosion of Nokia batteries — has been reported over the last couple of weeks across the country. An investigation by the company revealed that most of the alleged explosions happened due to the use of fake batteries and tampered handsets. “Every single incident is being investigated by Nokia. We found that almost all cases where explosion took place involved either fake batteries or their phones were tampered. We are doing our best to educate our customers about the disadvantages of using counterfeit accessories,” Nokia India’s managing director, D Shivakumar told reporters recently.

At the same event, the Indian Cellular Association’s (ICA) president, Pankaj Mohindroo, pointed out that the government must set basic quality standards for all batteries imported to India to protect consumers, while also calling for rationalisation of duties as fake batteries were being imported for as low as Rs 10 (along with a duty of Rs 3) when compared to Rs 100 and a 34% levy for authentic products. ICA is an industry body that represents all handset makers in the country.