Dis­tur­ban­ce of rese­arch in Ny-Åle­sund due to mobi­le pho­ne use

Too long to read? The key mes­sa­ge: in Ny-Åle­sund you can make mobi­le pho­ne calls, but you can­not use Blue­tooth or WLAN. It is important that all con­nec­tions on ALL rele­vant devices are deac­ti­va­ted!

Ny-Åle­sund.

In more detail

Ny-Åle­sund has had a mobi­le net­work sin­ce Novem­ber 2023. It was intro­du­ced becau­se many of the sci­en­tists and employees in the small town in Kongsfjord had expres­sed the cor­re­spon­ding wish, for their work, for safe­ty in the field and for pri­va­te use.

The pro­blem

Howe­ver, one man’s joy is ano­ther man’s sor­row: the sen­si­ti­ve mea­su­ring instru­ments at the geo­de­tic sta­ti­on of the Nor­we­gi­an Geo­de­tic Insti­tu­te (Kart­ver­ket) can be dis­tur­bed by elec­tro­ma­gne­tic waves emit­ted by mobi­le devices. For this reason, the use of the pro­ble­ma­tic fre­quen­ci­es bet­ween 2.1 and 2.5 GHz is also pro­hi­bi­ted in Ny-Åle­sund.

The geo­de­tic sta­ti­on near Ny-Åle­sund.

The 5G mobi­le net­work can use fre­quen­ci­es in this ran­ge, but does not have to. Due to a lack of tech­ni­cal exper­ti­se, I can only assu­me that the trans­mit­ter mast in Ny-Åle­sund uses fre­quen­ci­es out­side the inter­fe­rence ran­ge.

Fre­quen­ci­es

In any case, Blue­tooth (2.402 GHz and 2.480 GHz) and WLAN (inclu­ding 2.412 to 2.472 GHz) are ful­ly within the spec­trum that is gene­ral­ly used, but inter­fe­res with devices in Ny-Åle­sund and is the­r­e­fo­re pro­hi­bi­ted. Howe­ver, the devices, which include mobi­le pho­nes, came­ras, smart­wat­ches, head­pho­nes, com­pu­ters, prin­ters, etc., do not know this, nor do their users.

As the Norsk Kart­ver­ket is repea­ted­ly expe­ri­en­cing mal­func­tions in the ope­ra­ti­on of the geo­de­tic station’s mea­su­ring equip­ment, the pro­blem is curr­ent­ly back in the public eye – and not for the first time. In addi­ti­on to Sval­bard­pos­ten, the Ger­man tech­no­lo­gy web­site Hei­se also recent­ly published an artic­le on the sub­ject.

The solu­ti­on

Even if – it should be noted at this point – the mobi­le net­work in Ny-Åle­sund was not set up for tou­rists but for the town, tou­rists visi­ting the town by boat appear to be respon­si­ble for a signi­fi­cant part of the pro­blem. As is so often the case, the solu­ti­on could actual­ly be quite simp­le: Mobi­le pho­nes can be used, but all Blue­tooth and WLAN con­nec­tions must be deac­ti­va­ted. If this is not pos­si­ble, for exam­p­le with wire­less head­pho­nes or smart­wat­ches, the devices may not be used in Ny-Åle­sund. If you have them with you any­way, for exam­p­le on a ship, they must remain on board, as low down as pos­si­ble, in the hope that the metal hull will help to shield them.

Important­ly, this appli­es not only in Ny-Åle­sund, but within a radi­us of 20 kilo­me­t­res around the town, i.e. in the enti­re Kongsfjord.

Online in Ny-Åle­sund? Sure – but only via mobi­le net­work or wired,
not via WLAN.

Black sheep

It is pro­ba­b­ly fea­si­ble to com­mu­ni­ca­te the­se fair­ly simp­le mea­su­res to rese­ar­chers and employees who are stay­ing in Ny-Åle­sund for a lon­ger peri­od of time, but it is a dif­fe­rent mat­ter for tou­rists who only visit for a short time. Unof­fi­ci­al­ly, it is known that ope­ra­tors of the lar­ger ships that sail the­re regu­lar­ly some­ti­mes show indif­fe­rence, igno­re all calls and do not even switch off the WLAN net­works on board when their ships are in har­bour. Whe­ther pas­sen­gers on board are made awa­re of the ban and the mea­su­res descri­bed cle­ar­ly and in good time is at least doubtful.

Regu­la­ti­on?

And as is so often the case, one or two black sheep are enough to bring a who­le herd into dis­re­pu­te, and the call for ‘regu­la­ti­on’ of ship­ping traf­fic in the Kongsfjord is alre­a­dy loud. It doesn’t take much ima­gi­na­ti­on to visua­li­se that this could quick­ly turn into a clo­sure of the enti­re fjord to the public – after all, respon­si­ble poli­ti­ci­ans in the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment imme­dia­te­ly rejec­ted poli­ti­cal mea­su­res and cal­led on tho­se invol­ved to find a solu­ti­on.

On SV Anti­gua, ever­yo­ne was cer­tain­ly asked to switch off Blue­tooth and WLAN. But what about the big one and the smal­ler sai­ling boats?

Com­ment and pro­po­sal

Do we have to go for maxi­mum con­flict and demand that Ny-Åle­sund ‘choo­se bet­ween mass tou­rism and rese­arch’ and call for govern­ment regu­la­ti­on, as John­ny Wel­le, direc­tor of Kart­ver­ket, did in Sval­bard­pos­ten?

It could be so easy if ever­yo­ne joi­n­ed in and imple­men­ted the mea­su­res men­tio­ned, it real­ly isn’t that much to ask. Most of the ships that visit Ny-Åle­sund show that this is pos­si­ble.

And Kings Bay, as the owner and ope­ra­tor of the town and har­bour, could put pres­su­re on the ships that don’t feel the need to play in the rain. The elec­tro­ma­gne­tic spec­trum is recor­ded, inter­fe­rence quick­ly beco­mes visi­ble and, in case of doubt, the har­bour mas­ter can acti­va­te the WLAN and Blue­tooth func­tion on his mobi­le pho­ne to see whe­ther a ship pre­sent has set up cor­re­spon­ding net­works. And pen­al­ties for the moorer and, if neces­sa­ry, a moo­ring ban are cer­tain­ly within the scope of King’s Bay’s opti­ons, wit­hout the need for legis­la­ti­on. This should get the mes­sa­ge across, and anyo­ne who is still stub­born will be ban­ned.

Kings Bay, what are you wai­ting for?

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