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agencies for safety questions about wireless phones.
The FCC also regulates the base stations that the wireless phone
networks rely upon. While these base stations operate at higher
power than do the wireless phones themselves, the RF exposures
that people get from these base stations are typically thousands of
times lower than those they can get from wireless phones. Base
stations are thus not the subject of the safety questions discussed
in this document.
3. What kinds of phones are the subject of this update?
The term “wireless phone” refers here to handheld wireless phones
with built-in antennas, often called “cell”, “mobile”, or “PCS” phones.
These types of wireless phones can expose the user to measurable
Radio Frequency (RF) energy because of the short distance
between the phone and the user’s head.
These RF exposures are limited by FCC safety guidelines that were
developed with the advice of the FDA and other federal health and
safety agencies. When the phone is located at greater distances
from the user, the exposure to RF is drastically lower because a
person's RF exposure decreases rapidly with increasing distance
from the source. The so-called “cordless phones,” which have a
base unit connected to the telephone wiring in a house, typically
operate at far lower power levels, and thus produce RF exposures
far below the FCC safety limits.
4. What are the results of the research done already?
The research done thus far has produced conflicting results, and
many studies have suffered from flaws in their research methods.
Animal experiments investigating the effects of Radio Frequency
(RF) energy exposures characteristic of wireless phones have
yielded conflicting results that often cannot be repeated in other
laboratories. A few animal studies, however, have suggested that
low levels of RF could accelerate the development of cancer in
laboratory animals. However, many of the studies that showed
Safety