AMTA Snapshot Edition 44

Danish study rules out any link between long-term mobile phone use and cancer A study that has followed 420,000 mobile phone users in Denmark, for up to 21 years, has comprehensively debunked the common fear of a link to cancer, and shows that mobile phone users have the same chance of developing the disease as the general population.

You can bank on MobileMuster for mobile phone recycling ANZ today announced that customers will be able to deposit their old mobile phones, batteries and accessories for recycling while they do their banking. This is part of a new partnership between ANZ and the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA)’s mobile phone recycling program MobileMuster.

Mobile telecommunications industry gains more time to consider convergent devices legislation The mobile telecommunications industry will have the opportunity to consider draft convergent devices legislation and its potential impacts after the Federal Government delayed its introduction to Parliament, the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association, Chris Althaus, said.

Handset shipments pass 8 million mark Mobile phone handset shipments to Australia this year have passed the eight million mark, according to the latest industry figures. There were 816,980 handsets shipped to Australia in November, taking the total shipments for the 11 months of this calendar year to 8,052,692. Even with one month’s figures to go, this is higher than the record year in 2004 when 8,021,724 handsets were shipped to Australia.

Mobile phones could help cancer patients in remote areas The Age reports that mobile phones could be used to monitor cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy in remote parts of Australia, the country's top cancer experts have been told.

Communications Alliance elects Chair The newly-elected board of the Communications Alliance has chosen Neville Stevens as its independent non-executive Chairman.

Stable regulatory environment necessary for mobile TV, says report A new white paper published by the Joint Mobile TV working group of the GSM Association and the UMTS Forum charts the key enablers for the mass-market success of mobile TV services in Europe and worldwide. The paper stresses the importance of a flexible, harmonised regulatory environment where mobile TV can flourish through economies of scale and favourable end-user prices.

Mobiles with a high-speed future but uncertainty over network standard Many think mobile phones will evolve into all-in-one digital devices that will offer high-speed Internet browsing and mobile TV now that 3G use is gaining traction. However, there is no consensus among telecoms on what type of network standard will support such features, and future growth is seen in developing markets, where there may not be much demand for such services, BusinessWeek reports.