This is a study of how people coexisting with the infrastructure of electromagnetic mobile communication technologies emitting radio waves in the work and living environment: (i) in passenger trains, (ii) in shopping centres and (iii) in passenger cars. It revealed significantly different trends, over the last five years (2018-2023), in the structure of exposure to radio waves, with slight changes in the level of total exposure in analysed environments used by workers and the public. The observed changes are related to the spread of mobile access to fast data transfer and increased speed of transmission from personal devices (terminals such as smartphones or tablets). The results from shopping centres showed dominant downlink-components of exposure (from base stations) and a broadening of their frequency band (due to the spread of LTE subscription services using the 2100 and 2600 MHz bands) in 2023, along with reduced uplink-components (from terminals) and components related to local hotspots of non-subscription networks (Wi-Fi). A broadening of the frequency band was also observed in measurements from passenger trains, but with the dominant uplink-components of exposure, regardless of the availability of local hotspots. In passenger cars, exposure to external radio waves (downlink components) also broadened in the frequency band (in the LTE 800 and 2600 MHz bands). A reduction in exposure fluctuations over time was found in all the studied microenvironments. This implies that different measures are necessary to reduce workers’ exposure, along with different methods of identifying and assessing the parameters there.
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