A mobile phone, cell phone or hand phone is an electronic device used to make mobile

telephone calls across a wide geographic area, served by many public cells, allowing the user
to be mobile. By contrast, a cordless telephone is used only within the range of a single,
private base station, for example within a home or an office.

A mobile phone can make and receive telephone calls to and from the public telephone
network which includes other mobiles and fixed-line phones across the world. It does this by
connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator.

In addition to telephony, modern mobile phones also support a wide variety of other services
such as text messaging, MMS, email, Internet access, short-range wireless communications
(infrared, Bluetooth), business applications, gaming and photography. Mobile phones that
offer these more general computing capabilities are referred to as smartphones.

All mobile phones have a number of features in common, but manufacturers also try to
differentiate their own products by implementing additional functions to make them more
attractive to consumers. This has led to great innovation in mobile phone development over
the past 20 years.

The common components found on all phones are:

 A battery, typically rechargeable, providing the power source for the phone functions
 An input mechanism to allow the user to interact with the phone. The most common
input mechanism is a keypad, but touch screens are also found in some high-end
smartphones.
 Basic mobile phone services to allow users to make calls and send text messages.
 All GSM phones use a SIM card to allow an account to be swapped among devices.
Some CDMA devices also have a similar card called a R-UIM.
 Individual GSM, WCDMA, iDEN and some satellite phone devices are uniquely
identified by an International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number.
 Low-end mobile phones are often referred to as feature phones, and offer basic
telephony, as well as functions such as playing music and taking photos, and
sometimes simple applications based on generic managed platforms such as Java ME
or BREW. Handsets with more advanced computing ability through the use of native
software applications became known as smartphones. The first smartphone was the
Nokia 9000 Communicator in 1996 which added PDA functionality to the basic
mobile phone at the time. As miniaturization and increased processing power of
microchips has enabled ever more features to be added to phones, the concept of the
smartphone has evolved, and what was a high-end smartphone five years ago, is a
standard phone today.

 Several phone series have been introduced to address a given market segment, such as
the RIM BlackBerry focusing on enterprise/corporate customer email needs; the
SonyEricsson Walkman series of musicphones and Cybershot series of cameraphones;
the Nokia Nseries of multimedia phones, the Palm Pre the HTC Dream and the Apple
iPhone.
The effect of mobile phone radiation on human health is the subject of recent interest and
study, as a result of the enormous increase in mobile phone usage throughout the world (as
of June 2009, there were more than 4.3 billion users worldwide). Mobile phones use
electromagnetic radiation in the microwave range, which some studies suggest may be
harmful to human health. Other digital wireless systems, such as data communication
networks, produce similar radiation.

Part of the radio waves emitted by a mobile telephone handset are absorbed by the human
head. The radio waves emitted by a GSM handset can have a peak power of 2 watts, and a
US analogue phone had a maximum transmit power of 3.6 watts. Other digital mobile
technologies, such as CDMA2000 and D-AMPS, use lower output power, typically below 1
watt. The maximum power output from a mobile phone is regulated by the mobile phone
standard and by the regulatory agencies in each country

One well-understood effect of microwave radiation is dielectric heating, in which any

dielectric material (such as living tissue) is heated by rotations of polar molecules induced by
the electromagnetic field. In the case of a person using a cell phone, most of the heating
effect will occur at the surface of the head, causing its temperature to increase by a fraction
of a degree. In this case, the level of temperature increase is an order of magnitude less than
that obtained during the exposure of the head to direct sunlight. The brain's blood
circulation is capable of disposing of excess heat by increasing local blood flow. However, the
cornea of the eye does not have this temperature regulation mechanism and exposure of 2–
3 hours duration has been reported to produce cataracts in rabbits' eyes at SAR values from
100-140W/kg, which produced lenticular temperatures of 41°C. There were no cataracts
detected in the eyes of monkeys exposed under similar conditions. Premature cataracts have
not been linked with cell phone use, possibly because of the lower power output of mobile
phones.

Some users of mobile handsets have reported feeling several unspecific symptoms during
and after its use; ranging from burning and tingling sensations in the skin of the head and
extremities, fatigue, sleep disturbances, dizziness, loss of mental attention, reaction times
and memory retentiveness, headaches, malaise, tachycardia (heart palpitations), to
disturbances of the digestive system. Reports have noted that all of these symptoms can also
be attributed to stress and that current research cannot separate the symptoms from
nocebo effects.

A 2009 study examined the effects of exposure to radiofrequency radiation (RFR) emitted by
standard GSM cell phones on the cognitive functions of humans. The study confirmed longer
(slower) response times to a spatial working memory task when exposed to RFR from a
standard GSM cellular phone placed next to the head of male subjects, and showed that
longer duration of exposure to RFR may increase the effects on performance. Right-handed
subjects exposed to RFR on the left side of their head on average had significantly longer
response times when compared to exposure to the right side and sham-exposure

It would be good to restrict children’s use of mobile

phones
There is only scarce research evidence on children and mobile phones, and it is not easy to
get more – in research ethical sense, children are a special group, which is why the intended
study must be very well-founded. Research evidence is neither available on young people’s
using habits of mobile phones. Studies have been made with young test animals but these
results are not directly applicable to humans.

Children nevertheless have a special status as mobile phone users, among others, because
brains continue to develop even up to 20 years of age. It should also be taken into account
that children will have much more time to use mobile phones than adults today who started
their regular mobile phone use only about ten years ago. The risk of long-term use of mobile
phones cannot however be assessed with certainty until mobiles phones have been in use for
several decades.

On the grounds of the above-mentioned facts, STUK states that it is reasonable to restrict
children’s use of mobile phones the following ways:

 Parents are recommended to advice their children to use rather SMS messages than
mobile phone calls
 Parents may restrict the number of their children’s mobile phone calls and their
duration
 Parents are recommended to guide their children to use a hands-free that minimises
the exposure of head significantly. When using a hands-free it is recommended to
keep the mobile phone at least a few centimetres away from the body.
 It is not recommended to use mobile phones in weak fields.

STUK does not find it justifiable to totally prohibit children’s use of mobile phones. Mobile
phones also create safety because they make children’s communication with parents easier.

So, What is the Problem?

•In spite of these reviews, there is still widespread public concern, which if anything has
increased.
•Many scientific studies also note that there are insufficient well-controlled studies to draw
any firm conclusions.

•Some have argued that laboratory-based studies have used artificial sources of
Radiofrequency energy making it difficult to generalize to the normal working & living
environment.

How can we investigate the health effects of Electro Magnetic Field?

•Given the variety of questions to be addressed, a convergent approach using

multidisciplinary teams with a range of expertise would seem sensible.

•Investigation of the effects of EMFsfrom the molecular to the systems level is important.

What about hypersensitive people?

•Majority of studies randomly selected participants from the general population and
therefore these people may have been fairly insensitiveto RF-EMFs.

•There are people who claim that they experience a range of adverse symptoms & health
effects which they attribute clearly to EMFs.

•The traditional terminology has become “Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity

Syndrome”(EHS).

•EHS provides an opportunity to assess the health effects of EMFs, since people with EHS
generally report that their symptoms emerge within minutes of being exposed to an
electromagnetic field.

What can we conclude ?

•It is very difficult to draw any conclusions on the effects of base-stations on human health.

•There are too few double-blind studies, which test both EHS and control participants.

•Not enough is known about potential biophysical mechanisms (e.g., what is the effect of
pulsing on the brain?).

•There are many reports of EMFsaffecting neurotranmittersystems, but little evidence in the
published literature is generally cited.

Conclusion:

•In my view, there is a genuine uncertainty regarding the non-thermal effects of mobile
phones & their associated base-stations.
•However, several important studies are running currently and should be completed in 4-5
years.

•We need more well-designed studies to assess biological mechanisms in a more focused
way.

•Cognitive & behaviouralneuroscientists should work more closely with molecular

neuroscientists & physicists, engineers etc in a more co-ordinatedway.