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Comment by blueflow | Hacker News Reader

Comparison: Phones are up to 3 watts, sunlight is around 1.3 kilowatts per square meter.

Often much less in practice: 2G transmission was up to 2W, but 2G has been phased out in many countries. 3G I'm not very knowledgeable but IIRC was up to 800 mW (common case). LTE/4G is 200 mW maximum for sure. 5G is the same except for mmWaves, but that I don't know very well and it's not used much (not at all in Europe, where I live).

There are more powerful band classes, but for fixed wireless access. So for phone use on a modern network, you should now be most of the time at 200 mW max transmit power (same as WiFi BTW).

I'm guessing the average phone size is about 155 square centimeters, or 1.5% of a square meter. Multiply that by 3 Watts, and you get 200 Watts. That's about 15% of the suns energy per unit area. Of course it's probably a different type of radiation, and the whole phone isn't going to be radiating, so the intensity might be stronger.

You can't re-calculate a radial source into an area like that, most of the phones radiation is going into the other direction than were you are.

The way to measure this is based on distance. If say a phone emits 3 watts of RF but it’s set 1 meter away the area that 3 watts operates on is 4pi1^2. If the 3 watts is being emitted right next to you then maybe the size of the antenna stars to mater. This is why if your really worried about RF using wired headphones and never taking a call with the phone pressed up to your ear is the best thing you can do

The comparison means nothing about relative risk or biological impacts… very different frequencies interact with biological systems and penetrate tissues differently. Microwaves can rotate charged molecules, and penetrate deeply. Sunlight can ionize biological molecules, but only on the surface (skin).

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