CTIA – The Wireless Association is one of those industry groups that annually descend on a marquee city with a massive trade show, flooding the streets with badge-wearing conference-goers, and hotels and local businesses with dollars.
For five of the last seven years, CTIA’s show has been in San Francisco, as it will be this October. But this year’s show will be the last one in the City by the Bay for the foreseeable future.
The group is taking its show elsewhere (along with 68,000 attendees and $80m in economic activity according to CTIA), a response to the cellphone radiation law passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
“The Board of Supervisors’ action has led us to decide to relocate our show,” CTIA spokesman John Walls said in a statement. ” We have already been contacted by several other cities that are eager to work with us and understand the tremendous benefits that wireless technology and our show can provide their area.”
The industry group was understandably upset over the new law, which will require retailers to display the amount of radiation emitted by the cellphones they sell. The law comes as an app that monitors cellphone radiation is getting blocked from the App Store, and concerns are mounting over the health effects of prolonged exposure to the low-level radiation.
But CTIA insists that cellphones are safe, and says San Francisco’s new law will confuse consumers.
“Rather than inform, the ordinance will potentially mislead consumers with point of sale requirements suggesting that some phones are ‘safer’ than others based on radio frequency (RF) emissions,” said Mr Walls. “The scientific evidence does not support point of sale requirements that would suggest some compliant phones are ‘safer’ than other compliant phones.”
In some ways this is a token gesture by CTIA. This is not their main show of the year, and some exhibitors and attendees are questioning whether there even needs to be a second show.
Nonetheless, with cellphone radiation continuing to make headlines, it seems the industry will be debating this one for years to come — just not in San Francisco.
