Output Power Levels of 4G User Equipment and Implications on Realistic RF EMF Exposure Assessments

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present results on output power level distributions of 4G user equipment (UE) using data applications based on a very large number of samples collected over seven days in a long-term evolution (LTE) operating network. The output power data have been obtained through network-based measurements conducted for about 7000 UE connected to 41 LTE radio base stations located in rural, suburban, urban, and indoor environments in Sweden. More than 300 000 power samples were collected. In rural environments, the 95th percentile time-averaged output power values were found to be 2.2% of the maximum available power for LTE UE, while the corresponding values were less than 1% in other environments. The mean output powers in all the environments were found to be less than 1% of the maximum available output power. These values are in line with results obtained for 3G UE despite an almost tenfold increase in the achievable peak data throughput. The findings show that knowledge on realistic power levels is important for accurate assessments of the radio frequency electromagnetic field exposure from mobile communication equipment.