118 LG GW620R | User Guide
Safety Guidelines
The National Institutes of Health
participates in some interagency
working group activities, as well.
The FDA shares regulatory
responsibilities for wireless
phones with the Federal
Communications Commission
(FCC). All phones that are sold in
the United States must comply
with FCC safety guidelines that
limit RF exposure. The FCC relies
on the FDA and other health
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 radiofrequency
energy (RF) 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