Technical Trends

L. Bryant Underwood

Reverse Logistics Magazine, Edition 14

No doubt you are aware of my love of all things wireless. In fact I am clearly biased in the positions I hold regarding this technology. The reason for this adoration is the massive impact the technology has had on virtually all of society. Most of us can scarcely recall the good old days when you saw an accident you actually stopped, tried to help and then drive to a phone and call police. What about the efforts we make scheduling the mini-van with our children. Many families are so busy; I do not see how their lifestyle of "always on the move" is sustainable without almost continuous wireless communication. Then I also have a love of all things technical... This combination very nearly makes my head explode every time I hear one of the continual stories on the "R" Word—RADIATION.

There is probably no single word that has so much power to drive health concerns as the word "Radiation." But what is really meant by this word? There are two broad forms of radiation emission, ionizing and non-ionizing. In simple terms when most people think of radiation and its ubiquitous symbol, what they have in mind is ionizing radiation.

Ionizing Radiation is radiation that is energetic enough to dislodge at least one electron in an atom. The reason this causes so much concern and fear is that if the energy can dislodge an electron it can also damage DNA. For most of us we really need to keep our DNA intact. The leading exception is Olympic athletes—damage to their DNA, just makes them more like you and me...

However, whenever the word radiation is used in the context of cell phone technology it ALWAYS refers to non-ionizing radiation. Non-ionizing radiation is an emission that is not energetic enough to dislodge electrons and the absorbed energy converts to heat. This conversion of radiated energy into heat is common in physics and happens all the time. Next time you are at a stop light and the car next to you is playing a song called, "vibrate the heck out of my dashboardÉ" consider where that energy goes. It mostly turns to heat. That energy heats the air, it heats the glass and some of it even heats my eyeballs dancing in my head. This heat conversion also happens sometimes with ionizing radiation. When you wear sunblock, what you are doing is, reducing exposure to ionizing radiation from a thermonuclear reactor called the Sun. The way sunblock accomplishes this is by absorbing solar energy and converting it to heat. There is a specification of how non-ionizing energy from cell phones is measured and controlled; it is typically referred to as SAR (specific absorption rate). Even though the rules on the limits of exposure and technical specifications vary greatly by country, we tend to use the general "SAR" banner whenever referring to this issue.

I do not want to get too technical here, but now that you have some general background let me share with you some elements that trouble me about this never-ending story.

First, there is so much conflicting "evidence." The stories seem to be released in clusters. Typically these seem to be published on slow news days. One will indict all of wireless as being vastly dangerous, the next will find no link at all but both will demand more long-term studies. My opinion is that "long-term study" is really an academic term that means, "Keeping my job."

Second, consider the study process that yielded the results. Often these studies just asked people what their cell phone usage habits were. Even when the studies use phone records, correlating these records to all the variables is almost impossible. It is hard to overstate the difficulty in gaining meaningful information from studies that were conducted in this manner. The risk for exposure needs to happen over a considerable amount of time but over that same time, there are so many variables.

What side of your head do you hold the phone?

How many phones have you used?

Manufacturer and brand?

What technology where they?

Where they used in areas well-service with cell sites?

Are you a data user or heavy "texter'?

Blah, blah...

How can the recollections be accurate and in enough detail to be of value? In short, what meaning could be learned to point to a cause? At best what is found is some kind of general linkage that of course, needs further long-term study.

Third, so much of what is out there as information points to very old technology. I surfed many of the leading sites that advise the public about this issue. What I see is an amazing amount of very scary looking data that refers to old analog phones. The affinity to bash wireless by referring to old technology is an important trait that I believe reveals the real objectives behind much of the information. The original AMPS standard required the phone to be transmitting at a power level that had a continuously strong carrier that was modulated. There were power level controls, but the immaturity of the technology meant that for a lot of the time the phones ran at the higher power levels. Compare that to digital technology that uses spread spectrum and timing slots to disperse the power. These technologies reduce the energy emitted by hundreds of percent. In fact, the math behind the digital technologies uses some cool features like processing-gain and continuous power control. Processing-gain allows recovery of signals that are below what would be considered the analog noise-floor to be recovered. Continuous power control means that the phone operates in a closed loop where power is always being measured and controlled to keep the phone at the LOWEST power output possible. All of these technology benefits work together to produce the lowest SAR levels possible. The manufactures strive to do this, not just as a focus on safety but this is one of the reasons why talk time on most Cellphones is 4-8 hours, compared to an AMPS handheld that may only have been 40 minutes while using a giant battery.

As you can guess there are other issues I could point out, but these are the main "contrarian" points to consider. Fear the scare-mongers, not the facts.

L. Bryant Underwood is Director, North Americas Service at Foxconn Technology Group. Bryant’s past positions include GM, Director and VP level assignments in support of Operations, CRM, Materials and IT.