Power Level Distributions of Radio Base Station Equipment and User Devices in a 3G Mobile Communication Network in India and the Impact on Assessments of Realistic RF EMF Exposure

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present results on output power level distributions of radio base stations (RBSs) and user devices connected to a wideband code division multiple access-based third generation (3G) mobile communication network in India and relate the results to realistic human exposure to radio frequency (RF) electromagnetic field (EMF) emitted by the corresponding RBSs and the devices. The output power level distributions have been obtained through network-based measurements. In downlink, data from 868 RBSs were gathered during seven days. The RBSs were connected to five different radio network controllers (RNCs) located in different regions of India. The mean, the median, and the 95th percentile RBS output power values were found to be 24%, 21%, and 53%, respectively, of the maximum available power. In the uplink direction, output power levels of 3G devices connected to 1256 RBSs and the same five RNCs as in the downlink were assessed separately for voice, data, voice + data, and video applications. In total, more than 1 million hours of data traffic and more than 700 000 h of voice calls were measured in the uplink. The mean output power for the voice, data, the voice + data, and the video were found to be around 1%, 3%, 2%, and 4%, respectively, of the maximum available power for the 3G user devices. The findings are in line with previously published results obtained in other networks in Europe, and demonstrate that knowledge on realistic power levels is important for accurate assessments of the RF EMF exposure.