Warm up a cup of coffee in your microwave oven and drink it while you look over these measurements I made at my house: http://www.sonic.net/~n6gn/EVDOforums/radiation.pdf n6gn

Most modern phones and PDAs run no more than 400 mW maximum (+26 dBm). However, that is not a typical level. Most systems utilize power control as part of the protocol. CDMA, for example, updates the channel power ~800 times per second. It is a goal of the system to use no more power from the handset than necessary to achieve parity among users sharing a system. Average transmit power may be sub-microwatt (http://www.sonic.net/~n6gn/EVDOforum/radiation.pdf It's true some may spend more time with their phone at their ear than warming food but peak exposure from 'good' microwave ovens, never mind leaky ones, may dwarf that of communication's RF. n6gn

I'll supply the power over a single conductive cable 1 km long if you'll supply the robot to climb it. We can share the prize. I'm ready to demonstrate. To see how I do it see http://www.corridor.biz/FullArticle.pdf n6gn

Another way to view this fundamental wrong-tool-for-the-job issue is in considering the information rate you need to support for a phone call, by comparing a 2-way audio channel at ~10 kbps with a 3G data channel at whatever you call 3G but lots more than 10 kbps. This "3G overhead" in both up and downlink directions requires a better radio path than for the same audio call, everything else equal. Less energy needs to be transmitted for the audio call. While protocols can play games with this fundamental fact (as does EVDO by forking over the *entire* base station carrier to one user at a time and time-slicing (oversubscribing)) the fundamental service, there's no free lunch. Your limited battery and antenna size limit the range at which you can communicate with a given hot-spot/cell-site and requires that there be higher site density to serve a given user base. This means that a WiMax solution will fundamentally be more expensive than an old voice-only solution. In the end (whenever it all catches up with the user) this will be more expensive. Simultaneous higher data rates to all users (3G) takes more capacity/coverage than 2G. You can borrow coverage from capacity and vice-versa but someone has to pay and in the WiMax case payment will probably be initially in the form of reduced coverage area and more expensive plans. If it hasn't already hit the wall as in the case of 3G (notice how US coverage is only a few percent of the geography compared to 2G?) it will definitely do so with 4G. WiMax can throttle down to something around 1 Mbps but not a lot lower. There's 100:1 (20 dB) difference in energy delivery requirements between these two rates. This fundamental system cost is going to keep it from being an effective replacement for audio-only communications. n6gn

I'll say! Sheesh, If your head weighs the same as a bowling ball, that means the ENTIRE output of a cell site has to be *coupled* to your head. This is easily 100,000 times more power than one would receive 50' away from a typical cell installation. It would be 100 or more times the entire output of most handsets and probably at least 10,000 times the maximum that would likely be coupled into tissue. I don't understand how this test is supposed to be relevant to cellphone use by anyone, anywhere. n6gn