Electric Field near a Cellular Telephone

One of the more easy and convenient means of communicating is the cellular telephone, otherwise known as the "cell phone". There are many different advantages with this means of communication. However, just fairly recently, the disadvantages of the cell phone were discovered; that is, its electric field.

The higher the electric field around a cellular telephone is, the better the quality of the reception, however, there is a more likely chance of getting electric field signal into the body, slowly leading to possible harmful effects like cancer. A guideline has been established limiting the electric field strength near the cell phone, therefore, protecting the user of the cell phone. An electric field strength of 100 volts per meter is considered the "maximum permissible exposure".

Cellular Telephones have been dividied into categories involving electric field. These categories are divided into follows; U0, U1, U2, and U3. The cell phone with the best quality is U0, and quality goes down as the numbers follow. As one can see, 46-51 V/m of electric field is emitted to the user of the cell phone, while the user of a category U3 cell phone user receives less than 36 V/m of the emitted electric field.

Victor Lee -- 2003