Cell towers need to be constructed where people are using their cell phones. The wireless penetration in the United States is 96% and climbing while 30% of American households have “cut the cord” and have no landline telephone in their house. Ridan works with the wireless service providers (cell phone companies) to facilitate the deployment of their voice and data networks by providing cell towers in specific geographic areas. Cell phone companies need additional cell towers in these areas to address the increasing call and data volume.
Yes, Radiofrequency (“RF”) emissions from cell towers result in exposure levels on the ground that are thousands of times below safety limits. These safety limits were adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) based on the recommendations of expert organizations and endorsed by agencies of the Federal Government responsible for health and safety. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that such cell towers constitute a potential health hazard to nearby residents. Literally, it would take several thousand cell towers at a location to even come close to reaching the limits allowed by the FCC.
Actually, the larger risk of RF exposure comes from the cellular handset itself rather than a cell tower that is nearby. The inverse-square law states that “the RF energy at a distance from a source drops by the square of the distance from the source.” RF exposure to cell phone users is reduced by putting a cell tower in your neighborhood because the handsets will operate at significantly lower power levels. If you have a quarter-watt handset next to your head, it delivers significantly more energy to the user than does the 100-watt RF equipment that is on a cell tower that is a 100 feet away and 100 feet above the ground because of the inverse-square law. When you put a new cell tower in your neighborhood, the handset’s RF emissions is significantly reduces from a level that is 1,000 times below the FCC-defined safety level to a level that is 1,000,000 times below the safety limit.
The FCC is required by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 to evaluate the effects of RF emissions from FCC-regulated transmitters on the quality of the human environment. The FCC's RF emissions rules are designed to protect public health by limiting the maximum amount of RF emissions to which a cell tower may cause workers and the general public to be exposed. These rules are based on standards developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Inc. and adopted by the American National Standards Institute, as well as guidelines recommended by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements.