Comparison of peak electromagnetic exposures from mobile phones operational in either data mode or voice mode.

Abstract The aim of this study is to compare the typical peak ElectroMagnetic (EM) exposures from smart phones during data transmission and voice calls, respectively, in the typical Western-European city of Leuven, Belgium. Since transmission powers towards the outdoor network in an indoor environment are expected to be higher than in an outdoor environment, measurements were executed indoors. The influence of factors like network generation [2G, 3G, and 4G] and choice of mobile operator was also investigated. The most important conclusion of the study is that there is a huge difference between peak exposures generated by the 3 network generations currently active in Leuven. To the average, in many cases the peak exposure for 3G is more than a factor 20 lower than for 2G, and about a factor 5-10 lower than for 4G. These numbers are much higher than expected. There are also systematic differences between peak exposures for data mode and voice mode.