ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications 633 help to protect open spaces. The Broadband Deployment on Federal Property Working Group18 was established in June 2012 by the United States President in order to develop and implement a strategy to facilitate the timely and efficient deployment of broadband facilities on Federal lands, buildings, and rights of way, federally assisted highways, and tribal lands. Countries like Mexico have launched similar initiatives. 9.5 Planning exclusion zones In the context of wireless communications, infrastructure deployment planning‐based exclusion zones (also known as ‘Buffer Zones’ or ‘Cordon Sanitaires’) are geographic areas generally imposed by some local governments and their agencies around community facilities where a base station cannot be established. These areas are generally distance‐based and are applied without regard for the nature, or operation of radio base stations, or existing sources of RF‐EMF exposure in the environment. Typically, exclusion zones are imposed by some government policymakers in residential areas around community facilities such as primary and secondary schools, pre‐schools or medical facilities including hospitals. However, there is no science‐based rationale for their introduction, the specified facilities or the zone size (NRPB, 2004). As the availability of mobile networks can contribute to save lives (for example, in the case of accidents, disasters, etc.), exclusion zones should be minimized (Chapman et al., 1998; Wu et al., 2012). A policy of planning‐based exclusion zones has the potential to impact significantly upon the siting and deployment of wireless communications infrastructure. In turn, this impacts the delivery of quality wireless services (including mobile broadband) to consumers that increasingly rely upon these services. Operators usually have to increase the transmit power in nearby base stations to fulfil the service requirements. A case study, based on the city of Melbourne, Australia, explored the effects of implementing a hypothetical 500 m exclusion zone policy around community facilities (schools, pre‐schools and medical facilities) to a large urban area (Evans Planning, 2012). The study found that across the full metropolitan area, 54.1% of all existing radio base stations would be impacted. For an inner urban suburb, an exclusion zone of 500 m around all community facilities would cover 87.5% of the total geographic area of the suburb, affecting virtually all of the existing antenna sites. Overall, the existence of multiple negative consequences suggests that distance‐based planning exclusion zones are not an effective response to community concerns related to wireless infrastructure siting. SSC should not apply unscientific planning exclusion zones affecting wireless network infrastructure. Some countries, such as Israel, prohibit or restrict the siting of base stations in nature reserves in order to preserve the aesthetics of the natural environment and avoid disruption due to construction activities. In the United Kingdom, a joint accord between National Parks England and the Mobile Operators Association was signed in July 2014. The accord aims to help communities living in national parks to benefit from consistent high quality connectivity and protect the special qualities of the National Parks by minimizing any adverse environmental impacts. There are no indications that specific siting requirements are needed for wireless network equipment sited near petrol stations. ____________________ 18 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the‐press‐office/2012/06/14/executive‐order‐accelerating‐broadband‐ infrastructure‐deployment