Health and Safety Issues

• One of the most current health hazard in telecommunications are mobile telephones.
• Mobile phones give off electromagnetic waves to communicate, which may or may not be dangerous.
• The waves used to communicate around about 0.8 ~ 0.9 GHz, compare this with a microwave that uses 2.4 GHz waves to heat food.
• However the power used to transmit the waves is quite low, and there are no current links between cancer and mobile phone usage.
• The main fear is that the bandwidth required will soon become too large and this may cause higher frequency waves to be transmitted.
  • The higher the frequency, the higher the risk of harm.
  • This is because the higher the frequency, the more energy the wave carries. This energy could "heat up" and damage the tissue.
• In addition, Bluetooth, the technology used for remotely controlling a wide range of devices (such as wireless phone handsets), utilises EM Waves with 2.4 GHz, same as microwave ovens.
  • As a result, the range of bluetooth devices have been restricted to under 10 metres.
  • This restricts the amount of energy that the wave can carry, and at this range should not be harmful to humans.